Summer Colds Suck

Indeedeedoo.

Still here

For several weeks on the way in to work I've wanted to get a picture of the sign in front of Independent Records on Platte so that I could make some funny with it. Being me, I didn't get around to it in time, and now it's been changed. It had been announcing the impending arrival of a couple of CDs. It read:

Jun16
Rancid
Dave Matthews

I was going to say something along the lines of how I didn't know Dave needed to be kept refrigerated... but without the visual why bother? Lost opportunities.
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I'm back to actively looking for a new full time job. They're still using me at Graham for now, but as the days roll by I'm becoming more and more certain that I'll never be rehired here, and if I freelance for the rest of the year I'm going to be royally fucked come tax time. It wouldn't be so bad if I was making enough to be able to put some aside for taxes as well as pay the bills, but I'm not. Not even close.
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Depression is kicking in again. I can tell. Everything I try to do leads to frustration. I want to throw and kick shit way too much. Bah. Just thinking about it is making my head vibrate. Essentially, I'm engulfed by the feeling that everything I do is pointless and doomed to failure. Don't bother saying it isn't true. On some level I know that I'm good at some things, but right now I can't find that place. The only thing that is going to get me through this is knowing that it's not new and I've gotten through it before. But even that doesn't really help much. Since my ears have started ringing and I want to scream, it's time to write about something else.
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A couple of weeks ago I found out that my mom has been mad as hell at me for a long time because of some of the stories I've written here that involved her and my childhood. She still is, I guess. Nothing to be done about it though. I apologized, but pointed out that they are my stories too, since they involved me, and I had a right to tell them. If she didn't want that part of our lives to be brought into the light of day, she should have tried a bit harder to keep me the fuck out of it. She countered with how her other children would never have betrayed her like this. After that it turned ugly. I'll bet it was interesting for the other shoppers in the Antique Mall. So it goes.

---
Yesterday I finished reading an excellent book that Heather got for me for Father's Day by one of my favorite authors, Christopher Moore, called "Fool". I read it in two days. He's a gifted author. He just needs to write more, dammit.
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That's probably as happy an ending to this post as I can come up with today. Hopefully next time I'll manage to be more upbeat.

The job search continues...

Last week I made less freelancing at my former place of employment than I would have if I had just sat around, drawing unemployment. This week isn't going that great either. So I'm still keeping an eye out for job opportunities. I have one person starting up a game company interested in having me fill an artist position, but I'm thinking it's a low-to-no compensation deal, so it'll have to be a background gig at best. I might be wrong though. I'll see when he gets back in touch with me.

I've also been wandering around the local craigslist and decided to look away from my field and see what else is being offered. I came across a posting for "Phone Actors & Actresses"... I'm thinking "Sex Line." That, or perhaps they call up people and do Macbeth at them until they're paid to stop.

*ring*ring*

"Hello?"

"And oftentimes, to win us to our harm, The instruments of darkness tell us truths, Win us with honest trifles, to betray's In deepest consequence."

*click*

*ring*ring*

"Hello!?"

"Nothing in his life Became him like the leaving it; he died As one that had been studied in his death, To throw away the dearest thing he ow'd, As 'twere a careless trifle."

*CLICK*

*ring*ring*
*ring*ring*

"Grrr...WHAT!?"

"I have no spur To prick the sides of my intent, but only Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself And falls on the other."

"STOP CALLING!"

**SLAM!**

-30 minutes and 20 phone calls later-
*ring*ring*
*ring*ring*

"Okay... What... What can I do to make you stop? Just... please stop."

"It's $3.95 a minute for me to stop and it's been... 35 minutes, so that's... $138.25. We take Visa and Paypal."

"That's insane! I won't pay!"

"That's your choice, but I have all night and a lot of Shakespeare left. Keep in mind, the longer we go the more it'll cost you. Next up is King Lear. Here's a free sample: 'Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow! You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout Till you have drenched our steeples, drowned the cocks! You sulphurous..."

"STOP! STOP! I'LL PAY!"

"Damned right you will."

--------

Okay, one thing I can't find a way to do with Blogo is change the color of text. It's mind boggling that I can't find a way outside of coding in HTML to simply change text color. I hope it's just something I'm missing.

As promised.

The Magic Bullet Trick as performed by me, Derek and Terry. Seeing this has shown me in a way that no mirror ever has just how annoyingly fat I am. *sigh*

It's around 75 degrees out today, which wouldn't feel so warm if we hadn't had nine-ish straight days of clouds, rain, and 50 degree weather. On the way out to lunch I saw some poor bastard cavorting around in an armadillo costume as a shill for the Texas Steakhouse... T-Bone... whatever it's called. It was an intricate, full body, large head, mascot style costume, and looked hot as hell as he shuffled about with tiny hops and halfhearted spins. I felt pity for him as I went by, both out to lunch and back. I also thought that it'll really suck if I find myself in the next few months having to beg businesses to allow me to be their living signpost just to keep from losing the house. Colorado Springs is the wrong place to be an unemployed graphic designer. I don't know where the right place is.

More testing and games.

This is a test of the embedding capabilities of Blogo. Also, Prototype looks gruesomely awesome! I figure I can buy one game, max, over the next several months or until I've been at a full-time job for at least a month and it's between this and inFamous, linked below:

I've tried the demo, and it plays really well. It feels a lot like the Xbox 360 game Crackdown – a game that I spent countless hours playing back in the day, and have been hoping for a sequel to ever since finishing it. However there are a few things I found annoying with the demo, top among them was how hard it was to get to the ground without grabbing on to things on the way down. It felt a bit too sticky. Otherwise it was a fun time, and for a demo it was pretty expansive, giving what I expect is a good feel of what the full version will play like.

This is what Justin's buying with his remaining allowance. The demo of it was excellent as well. So between it and either Prototype or inFamous, we should be set for gaming for at least the next three months, if not longer.

Yeah. I'm a gaming addict. Speaking of games and gaming, Justin has really progressed in learning his way around TorqueScript and Torque Game Builder, and just recently finished writing a design document for the first game he wants to work on. I'm a fair bit behind him as far as the learning, but I'm getting there. More about all that later.

Two posts in one day. How about that? I'm liking Blogo.

I'm testing a new program.

Well, new to me at least. I'm trying out a program called "Blogo" that says it's "Blogging made easy" and you can "Post from the comfort of your desktop" which, if true, means I'm likely to start posting again. I'm testing the program now because it's available through todays MacUpdate Promo for 48% off, an offer that expires in little over 9 hours.

What's been happening in my life? Well, I'm still unemployed, although I've been able to – so far – freelance at my former place of employment just enough to stay on top of my debt. If that stops I'll be back to panicking. Until then I'm stable at "reasonably concerned, yet stuffed with dread."

Last night I went with Derek to Freak Train up in Denver and we performed a magical bullet catch trick we'd been kinda practicing for about a month, assisted by our former coworker, and hell of a slight-of-hand artist, Terry Gonzales. It went...

Well, it went. From my vantage point I couldn't tell just how it went. I do know that I fumbled one of my key parts, but I don't know how visible it was to the audience. But whatever. It's Freak Train. One of the most forgiving audiences you can hope for. And it's done, which is everything I hoped for. My son was with us, and he filmed all of the goings on with Derek's camera. If and when the video goes live I'll post it here.

In the meantime, back to testing. First a test of image placement:

Next, a thumbnail linking to a full size image:

So, thoughts from any die-hard fans in the background: should I let Fizzle & Pop die, and move on to some other bloggy endeavor with a breadcrumb trail left behind for people interested to follow, or should I keep things here? To be honest, after all of this time I'm kinda tired of the site, and that may be contributing to my lack of posting more than anything. Well, that and being boring. It may be time to shake things up a bit, see if I can stir up any interest that may be hiding behind the furniture.

Now to post. I'll write again soon. Especially if this program works out and I buy a license. Then I'll HAVE to, if only to justify the expense.

I felt it coming.

Annnnd I'm laid off. As of last Thursday, the 19th. This has been a year of "what-the-fuck?!" and it's only about a quarter over. Fun fun.

Recurring Nightmare

A long time ago, when my son was maybe 2 years old – so 14 years ago – my car was broken into during the night. It was parked in front of the house. I came out to the driver's side door, on the street side, standing open. The glove box had been rifled through and anything of value was gone. The doors had been locked, but it was a late 80s Ford station wagon so I can't imagine it was that hard to break into.

So I got into the car, straightened up the glove box, put in the key and turned it. Nothing happened. I was already going to be late for work and now the car wouldn't start. I'd had problems with it before, and thought the battery cables might be loose. So I popped the hood release, got out and lifted the hood. Indeed, the cables were loose. Very loose. They were just hanging there. The battery was gone.

Yep. The fuckers also stole my battery.

Since then, off and on, I'll have a dream where I'm coming out to my car and it's been ransacked. I'm talking to the point of doors, tires, even the entire engine missing. I have no idea what triggers the dream, but I had it again last night. The difference this time was, in the dream, I was tired of this crap happening all the damned time. So I gathered what I could of the car and took it to a person who supposedly would be able to make it so nothing could be taken from my car ever again, but it was going to cost me $400. I woke up before deciding whether or not to have the work done.

To this day, I never keep anything of value in my car.