Photoshopped Red Phantom

Pisses me off. I can do this in under ten minutes but I can't find regular graphic design work.

R.I.P. Tom Snyder (May 12 1936 - July 29 2007)

For 2 weeks in 1994 I had horrible insomnia. No matter what I did, I couldn't sleep. So I passed the time by talking walks in Flushing, reading, watching TV. One night I came across the Late, Late Show with Tom Snyder. I left it on and lay on the couch.

30 minutes later I was utterly enthralled. The host, Snyder, had such a laid back casual tone to his interviews it felt as if he was in my living room in person. A very relaxed man, Snyder gave relaxing, pleasant interviews w/o being smarmy, confrontational or condescending like other hosts. 5 years in 1999, he handed his show to Craig Kilborn.

He died this morning and the local news are a buzz with his passing. And with good reason. Letterman may be the funniest, Leno the nicest and Conan the wackiest but Snyder was the friendliest.

Here's a colortini for you Tom...

Funny and cute pictures

What if cats had hands?

Sparky regretted playing poker with the cat whose nickname was "The Shark"

And millions of Christians, Jews, Muslims etc.
realized that they were screwed

The dog knows a good steak!

Happiness is having a warm sleeping bag at a sleepover

A real friend will help you out no matter how stupid
or dangerous whatever it is your planning.

Goddamnit to f***-ing hell

I just got a call from my godparents. A box they had behind a chair in the living room is missing. Turns out the box was something sent by relatives who went back to Cuba. The box had some clothing, a laptop and a Playstation console.

There's not even an idea as to when it had happened because in the afternoons, my godparents lock themselves in the room with the AC to take a nap. And while the living room door is closed, it's not locked. Also when my godfather goes out in the daytime leaves the door closed but unlocked.

A long time ago, my mother went to visit them and she found the door ajar. It's obvious that his Alzheimer's must've had a role. He must've left the door open one day when he left.

I'm pissed that this could've ended up worse and sad that his Alzheimer's is getting progressively worse. I've told him, in a very stern manner, that when he leaves he should LOCK THE BLOODY DOOR. I also told him that when he goes to nap with his wife to LOCK THE DAMN DOOR.

From now on before each time I leave the building, I'm going to check if they locked the door in the morning and/or afternoon.

ARH!

So I'm awake early this morning, channel surfing, alternating between BBC News and public access. 9am rolls around and on Channel 35 Queens Public Access, a show called "Goth World" starts.

Intrigued, I leave the tuner on that channel. Maybe I'll see segments on new music, literature, something.

WRONG.

God, it fucking pissed me. It was nothing more than a buncha heavy metal groupie sluts, perverted S&M freaks, and vampire-wannabe losers. What... The... FUCK?! When I was clubbing in the 90s, goth wasn't about ANY of that shit. I remember when club bouncers made sure to turn away who was a headbanger, dominatrix or vampire-looking freaks with capes.

I remember when the scene was about art, literature, music and philosophy. All with a macabre, morose, melancholic bent of course. Now... I see shit like this.

White facepaint and unimaginative black clothing make not for goth. I want to spit in the faces of each and everyone of those emo idiots. I fucking BET you that not one of them ever read Baudelaire or listened to Siouxsie & the Banshees or anything to that effect! God, it's not that fucking hard to dress properly when you're going out clubbing.

Now look at these idiots from Japan.

They don't even have a goth scene. It's GOTHIC LOLITA.
They just hang out on street corners and in parks. I have a friend who moved to Ireland a long time ago and he DJ's part-time in Japan (Chiba to be exact) when he's there for graphic design/marketing and he tells me these gothic lolitas don't even know who the Cure is. To them it's all about the clothing and being noticed.

Another thing which pisses me off is how people are mixing up emo & goth.

IDIOTS. What? No one can use the internet for research instead of just looking at porn and entertainment news!?

"Gee. I wonder what is this emo thing I keep hearing about. Gosh, I think I'll use the interweb and look it up!"

Emo was a formerly emotional, aggressive form of punk from the NINETIES. It was never about guys with faggy haircuts which look better on girls nor was it about angst, whining pain or shit like that.

Now you have this kind of bitch.
This... This is also not goth!

It's just a fucking porno cunt skank with bad makeup in an attempt to lure fucking losers to have a hand slam at their computer. Think she can appreciate Emerson? Shakespeare? Thoreau? History in any context? Classical art?! NO. They think it's about looking dark and slutty.

She probably thinks goth is watching the Crow series over & over and wearing those out of date Nightmare Before Christmas Jack Skellington tee-shirts and wearing top hats. ARRH! No, no, no! When I used to see those stupid hats at clubs and shows, I wanted to smack them off.

You want real goth people? Here.

Dignified, ostentatious and a sense of macare joie de vivre.

I'd post some pictures of goth men but unfortunately, MANY pictures I found on google image were of these weak, effeminate wimps with long skirts and horrible makeup. *sigh* It's like being a masculine goth is a stigma.

Then you have those idiots with puffy shirts, long scraggly hair and beards looking like rejects from a Renaissance Faire.

See, Jerry knows it's a stupid shirt.

This is what happens when clubs have "all-ages" nights. You get stupid kids and college kids who are still stuck in the highschool mentality who don't bother to take the time to assimilate themselves into a subculture.

I leave you with this humorous image

Note the carefully torn black panty hose. The ubiquitous lunchbox. The bad makeup so methodically applied. Oh and the hair! I only hope I don't put up with the same shit in Albany next year.

What a miserable day.

What a horrible way to start the day. This morning around 5, I hear a metallic "thunk thunk THUD." I go to the bathroom and I see that water's leaking AGAIN from the ceiling. The place where the water was dripping from had become distended like some sort of giant pimple. I grab a safety pin and I carefully pop the paint zip and SPLASH. The water comes rushing out, splashing out over everything.

10 minutes of cursing later, I'm on the phone to the superintendent telling him what happened. 20 minutes later, one of the building's handymen stop by. He's flabbergasted at how fucking stupid the upstairs are. He's cleared the damage wood from the ceiling and to work on the plumbing.

Now I have to wait and see what happens next.

That was definitely a catalyst. I've been in a very bad mood today. I got a killer headache, my legs and knees are aching badly and I feel weak as a kitten. I spent the entire day on the couch reading spy books, history books and Harry Potter. I just feel as if today was a wasteful, meaningless day.

It's not even one of my down days too.

Follow up

Brad has written a response to the letter I sent him last week. It looks as if things could be patched up. I'm glad. He was, or will be again, one of my best friends. We're going to meet for a nosh next month before I make the big move to Warwick. Hopefully he and I will pick up where we left. Others have emailed me as well. Some were more than sympathetic about my disappearance after Heather's passing and fully understood what I went through back in 1998 & again in 2006 when my father was dying and finally died.

As mentioned in a previous entry, I also made mention of my manic-depressive side. Surprisingly many of those who wrote back knew I was hyper and the like but since I didn't bring it up, nor did they.

Unfortunately, a small # of people didn't write back while 2-3 email addresses weren't working.

RPG Humor

Those who play tabletop and PC RPG's know exactly what the following pictures mean. I didn't include console RPG's because they SUCK. Japanese roleplaying games are too linear and don't allow for character development and... Well there are plenty of reasons why Japanese RPG's suck. That's another entry for another time...

Kuon

Tired of lame Resident Evil games and other attempts at "survival horror" shit? Need more of that supernatural horror fix given to you by Silent Hill?

Then check out KUON!

Taking a risk before I leave NYC

2 years ago my father began his frequent trips to the hospital for his cancer. As most of you know, he died in Nov. of 2006.

During the year, I've lost control of my emotions. Anger, paranoia, fear and hostility was running roughshod all over me. I cut off a lot of friends and loved ones because of my lack of self-control.

Today, I took a chance and emailed them after 2 years. I hope most of them, if not all, will forgive me for the shit I put them through as I struggled to keep my sanity. I told them about how my dad was wasting away and I told them about my bi-polar disorder which to my chagrin cycles more rapidly than normal and also told them that I've been suffering since high school.

It felt good getting it off my chest. I just hope people will write back. God I'm so sorry for letting my emotions control me like that. It was a darkside I do not want to see again.

GUN PORN IS GOOD

What I am listening to

http://www.radioghoulschool.com/

The Thing in the Attic

God almighty. This is creepy as hell. I found this while watching FCI TV on cable. It's leased air programming from Japan. Anyway, today they were doing a segment on ghost hunting (european and asian ghost hunting programs are so much better than the shit on the Sci-Fi channel btw) and they spoke to one guy about how he was trying to sell a house he bought and renovated.

Turns out the house has been abandoned since the 1950s. People kept moving away constantly until it was finally abandoned and fell into disrepair. The contractor found records of the house and common complaint was that there was intense heat, noise and a strong musky smell coming from the attic. One night, he spent a night in the house and heard noises something like sloshing, moaning sound but wasn't too sure.

The next day, he decided to take a picture after leaving the entrance to the attic open. This is what he saw.

Thank god I had the foresight to tape the program so I can find a paranormal investigator's YouTube collection which had this picture from the TV show.



Yikes. This reminds me of the Real Ghostbusters cartoon episode when the team goes to investigate a haunted house and there is something huge in the attic.

Fast fwd. to the 7:00 mark.

Back from the doctor's

The checkup went well. I'm quite pleased with my new doctor. He's a very lighthearted, friendly, warm Jamaican straight outta Kingston, son. He be havin' de devil's laugh but God's presence!

He went over my blood tests which I'm pleased to say is still the same. Low cholesterol, low sodium, low sugar. And my blood pressure is perfect. Which is still baffling because I'm 240-250 lbs. 6 feet and 1 inch. Baffling because according to that stupid BMI shit, I'm supposed to be 170-180.

Oh fuck no. I'd be a twig at that weight! I rather be tall and overweight and intimidating instead of tall, thin and frail looking. I'll keep trying to lose weight but I'll stop at 190-195.

Now, onto the wound. Fortunately the bleeding had stopped so when the doctor was able to cut away the dressing and look at it, I was able to see how deep the slash was. Deep enough. The only size comparison I can come up with was if you look at the letter "H" on your keyboard sideways and study the width of the letter then you can get an idea of how deep the cut was.

He says it's a wound that will take a LONG TIME to heal. Then as if on cue, it began to flow again. He quickly turned to his... His... Ahh? Workstation I guess? He produced a syringe and jammed it DIRECTLY INTO THE WOUND.

Good fucking lord, I thought i was going to cry. He said he had to inject an antibiotic/coagulant. A few seconds, the numbness had stopped. He carefully wiped away the excess blood, put a huge glop of bacitracin which is specially treated for deep puncture wounds. It was such a curious sensation because it BURNED LIKE HELL but yet it felt ice cold.

So here I am typing with all my fingers. For all the good it'll do me. I don't have a PS2 to compete in that Splinter Cell tourney this Thurs. and Friday...

Don't worry J. I know you're reading this. I'll get back at you somehow. That or karma will catch up to you for not giving me the slim PS2 as you promised.

Now... Now I'm going to pass out from the heat and sleep for several hours.

No catchy title

This weekend was just the thing I needed.Aside from a few nasty snags (the severe heat, the Sci-Fi Channel not working which caused me to miss Doctor Who), I enjoyed myself immensely. Though certain things weighed heavily on my mind. Earlier on last week, someone was supposed to give me his brand new slim PS2 in lieu of pay for work done on his webpage. I accepted his offer foolishly because I thought I could trust him and because there is a Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory online tournament later on this week.

I was pretty good, no... That's not quite right. I'm DAMN good as playing an ARGUS agent. Even though the game is played from the "First Person Shooter" (FPS) perspective, I still perserved quite well. I knew what to do if my on-screen soldier was blinded. I knew that my rifle butt smash was my best friend in close quarters combat (CQC). I also knew how to properly set up traps using proximity mines and laser alarm traps.

But I was an idiot. I should've demanded $ up front like I normally do. At this moment,I could be sharpening my spy hunting skills for this Thursday and Friday. Just as well though. My right middle finger is in agony.

Last night, I blindly stuck my hand to get some stuff out of my overnight bag. I felt the back my middle finger brush against something and a very brief, but wholly intense, flash of pain seared through my hand, up my arm and into my shoulder. The shock was so quick, I was practically stunned. Then I felt something wet and hot trickle down my finger. I pull my hand out and somehow I had managed to shave off the skin from behind my nail to the 2nd knuckle. I guess I hit a vein because the blood kept trickling out. Actually I should say GUSHING out.

I ran to the bathroom and quickly placed it under running hot water to kill any bacteria.

Scream of pain.

I then ran cold water to constrict the blood vessels.

Scream of agony.

Then I dabbled iodine on the still flowing wound.

Shriek of agonizing pain.

Then I remember something my father taught me he learned from his time in the Colombian military. Coffee. I ran to the kitchen, spilling blood on the floor (no, I'm not exaggerating). I open a jar of coffee and scoop a tablespoon on the wound.

HORRIBLE, AGONIZING, SHRIEK OF PAIN and TORMENT!

With the blood flow staunched, I took 4 pieces of gauze, wrapped it TIGHTLY around the finger and wound surgical tape around it 20 times. Looking at it, I can see the flow still has continued (see picture. it's blurry yes but you see where the coffee - blood is).

I'm not going to cut back the dressing to check. Tomorrow, I'll let my doctor take a peek at it. Hopefully he won't put any more iodine or the like on it.

Christ almighty, I think I tied it too tight. My right hand is slightly numb. That or I lost a too much blood. I'm inclined to believe both now that I look back at how long it took me to clean the blood from the bathroom sink...

Bringing down the house on myself

Three hours ago, I wake up to go the bathroom to take some Advil. My left leg's pain woke me up with a sudden jolt. I take the pills and turn to leave. Then it hit me. Plaster, wood, metal, plywood. They really hurt! Just as I had left, the ceiling came down and huge chunks smacked me hard on my back, shoulder and head.

What a fucking horrible way to start the day. What started off as... "bubbles..." at 12ish last night appearing in the paint on the ceiling has become a disaster area. All I wanted was to take some Advil for the pain in my leg and now my entire body is wracked with pain after being mugged by my bathroom.

And it happened exactly like in the movies. Bits of rubble and dust trickle down, then it all comes down at once. I called up the superintendent and he came by.

What's unusual is how it looks. It's like someone had dug in their fingers and pulled it down like a wedge. Also there is no water. My guess is that throughout the night, the water had been absorbed into the wood, plywood and whatever that cardboard-like thing is. The resulting weight was too much and it just dropped.

Well I called up the superintendent and told him what he happened. He then came 30 minutes later to survey the damage. He said the same I thought that the hole and the edges look somewhat clean and it's as if someone had pulled down. I could tell he thought for a bit that it was intentional (as in making the damage worse). I could've just grabbed him by the throat and headbutted him. What a fucking asshole.

What the....?

An incomplete pass in Writing Workshop 1? How the hell did that happen? I thought I handed more than the majority of my work. Anyway, I was told by my adviser before anything is done, I have to fix those. So I spoke to my Writing Workshop 1 teacher and he told me what I have to do so I don't get an F. A 15 page research paper! Good god almighty. I got exactly 2 months to do this. He claims we had a correspondence last month and last week about it but I honestly don't remember ANY OF IT. I checked my emails and I don't see any indication of my sending such letters out. Jesus H. Christ, this is going to be the ultimate challenge for me. It's time for me to enter panic mode methinks.

Also prohibting me from getting anything done is a financial hold on my account. Another WTF moment here. I filled out ALL of my applications for grants, scholarhips and student loans RIGHT after the spring 2007 semester ended in May so as to make sure everything gets processed on time.

It's time for me to get paranoid.

This fucking sucks. All this shit keeps getting worse ever since my dad died. It's gotten me in such a foul mood that I want to yell and smash things until I wear myself out.

Maybe it was a mistake going back to school. I don't know anymore.

What to do on a Tuesday?

Today I'm meeting with my adviser (advisor?) to see about getting approval for the leave of absence. If I'm granted it (I really don't any reason why I won't be), it'll make things easier for me in Warwick. I'll work this semester get myself back on $$ track, go back to school in the Spring of 2008, then during the summer I'll transfer to Albany University. I think they have a good writing program. Not too sure.

Anyway, it's going to be a godsend to get away from Flushing for a bit.

What else am I going to do today?

1. Ogle the voluptuous & busty Korean neighbor as she walks her dog (annyong haseyo! I can't help it. I'm a man who likes big women).
2. Continue working on the Horror of Chinatown script.
3. Set down some notes and plot points for the other comic scripts.
4. Get my ass to looking up those links on writers' conferences and see if any are held in NYS or New England.
5. Finish reading up about spiritualism, ghost stories and haunted folklore in 1930s New York state.
6. And finally continue doing research on the legend of the Skinwalkers in Navajo legend.
   

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It's endearing to see gorillas have fun. I never knew they liked to spin...

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Now THIS is something worth buying. I wonder if he can do the same thing for the PS2, 3 or the X-Boxes.

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I gotta get this!

Today was.... Meh

Today was relatively uneventful. Nothing special, really. I met with my former Critical Thinking teacher who was discussing her plans for a documentary she's working on and several other projects.

Everything seems to be coming along smoothly apparently. We then discussed what I had been up to since we last met back in Feb. She was pleased to see that I'm keeping myself grounded with my research for my comic and novel.

My friend emailed me an amusing link... On it I was able to more or less create myself in Simpsons form. It came out pretty good but shame there were no black horn rimmed glasses. Though I am quite pleased with my blasé expression.

Red was always my power color.

Well that's it for now. This Friday I am going away for the weekend.