bitterdiva

Final escape weekend

This weekend will be the last weekend for a while that I'm away from my apartment on the weekend, which is a damn good thing. Granted last weekend was fantastic but having three nights of classes right after a busy weekend wearies me out faster than a taiwanese hooker when the navy's in town.

This week's e-art project is the industrial photo shoot. It's rather unfortunate because I'll be out of town and can't capture the area's scene and I'll have to do it in Connecticut where I have some areas but none that I'm completely familiar with. But I get to go to a wedding and then spend my birthday with my sister so maybe there's something going on around those scenes.

My mother is picking me up for this weekend's expedition home, we're going to xgates for dinner and shoppings (yay shoppings!). I hope to pick up my room somewhat so that she can crash on my bed instead of sleeping on the futon. Also, I hope to make it to Mahar's because honestly 2 weeks with no Mahar's makes me something something... go crazy?

I've been having some really messed up dreams lately. I know the cause, it's getting up in the middle of the sleep cycle, urinating, and going back to bed for one or two hours. One of the dreams involved Johnny Depp hammering nails in the face of Steve Buscemi which eventually killed him. Another part of it was in the courtyard of a prison where several large black men were running around naked with their members in the shape of gourds.

3 prayers | 12:56 PM

Smoking Fascists

I heard about this yesterday, I read an article in the NY Post but figured, “hey it’s the Post how true can it be?” Today Kris forwards me an article from Cybercast News about the same topic. Now it has gone a bit too far, legislation wants to ban smoking in private cars and will do so if they get to pass some bills currently in the queue.

From the CNSNews.com article:
“Pending bills introduced this year in the state legislature include one banning smoking in the privacy of a person's own car, leading smoking advocates to believe a complete ban on smoking is on the way.

However, lawmakers claim the intent is to protect children by getting businesses to cut down on pollution.”

From the NY Post article:
“Grannis (D-Manhattan) said bills like those outlawing smoking in cars with kids on board and banning the sale of more affordable small packs of cigarettes are designed to protect children.”

I can understand the litter issue; I am even guilty of discarding my one or two butts out of the window whilst driving. As for the children on board aspect, are the police really going to enforce this law and how easy will it be for a person with no children smoking their legally purchased cigarettes to be pulled over by some cop and have to deal with the hassle of wasting time as the cop realizes there are no children.

I feel it is the parent’s responsibility to be intelligent about not smoking around their children. I am conscientious about not smoking around our cats because they don’t like cigarette smoke so why should anyone in the apartment subject them to it?

The article is right though, it’s just another step to finally eliminating the smoker’s right to imbibe in their vice. Just like they say in quitting, gradual steps, but they’re taking gradual steps to prohibiting the right to enjoy a product.

For those interested in reading the actual legislation here are the links:
A00056 - Smoking ban in cars with minors under the age of 16. I have a question here, why is it under 16? Isn't the legal age of buying cigarettes 18, shouldn't the legislation also include those from 16 to 18 or are they not good enough to save?

A00738 - "Prohibiting smoking on public beaches and in public parks."

A02765 - "Prohibits smoking in dormitories and other residential facilities of public and private colleges and universities."

A02766 - "Strengthens provisions restricting smoking in workplaces, requiring a separate smoking break room, provided there are sufficient accommodations for nonsmokers"

A02767 - "Prohibits smoking in bowling establishments, except bar and food service areas, requiring separate ventilation and negative pressurization; repealer"

5 prayers | 12:41 PM

Orgasm in the City

Here it is, proof that I finally met the sexiest author around. I would also like to point out two things, one: Yoda met Neil too; and two: you can see the tray of Halloween cookies I made for the event.

So how did everything go down? Successful is the first thing I can think of but more importantly, fuckingly perfect (or orgasmic). Kris and I took the 7:34 train into NYC to arrive at 9:12. We hopped on the 7 to Times Square, picked up the Q going in the wrong direction and ended up at 28th st. and 7th Ave. Walked around the block to only discover we had to just cross the street to pick up the train going the right way. Got on, got off at 55th when we should have gotten the 49th street.

We made it to the Equitable Center at 10:26, picked up Patrick's birthday present to Kris which was Sandman Endless Nights. Stepped into line and got our green happy bands with our numbers on them. We were 117 and 118. Then we were herded into the auditorium where we sat third row on the left section, 4th seat in. So we were about 20 feet away from Neil. I audiotaped the entire presentation so I can drool later basking in the glory that is his voice.

Neil talked a bit about the artists that worked on EN and about Sandman in general. He read 15 portraits of Despair and the poem Mr. Crazy Hair (a fantastic humorous poem in honour of his daughter Maddy). Afterwards he did about 15 minutes of Q&A and that portion of the day was over. We were then to go into line and wait for practically eternity.

The signing began at 12:40pm. One of the NY is Book Country people said to 14 year old girls sitting behind us that it would take about 30 minutes for us to be signed. I turned around to them and said, she obviously hasn't been to a Neil signing before and it would be about an hour and half until they got to us. So Kris and I sat and waited, and waited, and waited some more with the occasional pee break and smoke break.

The line starts to move faster after the first hour and eventually kris gets to see Neil. I take a picture of the two of them and I have to think that I was more excited to see Kris meet Neil than he was. Then it's me. I walk up to Neil and said, "Since you gave me a cookie at the signing last year I would like to return the favour and give you some cookies." He perks up and says, "were you one of the very tired people there?" Saying yes I hand over the cookies. He gets thanks me, his staff swarm over with scissors to cut open the cellophane wrapping. He remarks how they should be put out for the other people in line and I say something about that's what they're there for. He grabs one of the Hershey kisses and his assistants take some of the cookies.

Then I ask him if he wouldn't mind taking a picture with Yoda and he asks me if I would also like to be in the picture, which I couldn't refuse since I get to crouch right next to The Man. Picture taken, 1602 and Wolves In the Walls signed and numerous complements about the ornamentation and presentation of the cookies later, I walk away float away to put all my shit back together. I don't think the shit-eating grin left my face for the rest of the day.

Afterwards I called up Mr. Kris to check on his current location and to head over to Heartland Brewery and wait it out for him and his friend from hs, Lisa. Lunch was damn good, I had a burger with cheddar cheese and mashed potatoes and two pints of their Smilin' Pumpkin Ale. I don't eat fries anymore since I get ill from them since the GB surgery so I opt for mashed potatoes and they're always ten million times better than icky fries. The waiter, who we could not understand a single word of, brought us over 8 samplers of their beers which were all damn tasty. My favourite beers were the Stumpkin (pumpkin and stout), Belgium ale, and their Wheat.

Lunch eaten, beers drank, and Lisa heading out early, the three Xrises of the Apolcalypse head on back to their respective trains with catching a little more time together on the subway back. It was a bloody damn good time being in the city, seeing Neil, hanging out with Mr. Kris (if only for a couple of hours), and heading back home with several hours left of the day to reflect, drink beers, and watch the Miss America Pageant.

Which brings me to this: When did the Miss America deal get so fucked up? The five contestents were not attractive, the only one with real talent was Ms. Wisconsin with her cello playing (the other four forcibly sang their way through the talent competition), and who gave Tom Bergeron permission to be seen off the set of Hollywood Squares? Honestly, the Quiz portion of the competition might have been an homage to his career with HS, but it seemed more like a, "Let's See How Dumb Pagentry Bitches Are" Quizshow. Granted these women are not the pinnacle of genius in the country but some of them could be intelligent. In fact, Ms. Wisconsin graduated from medical school so you know the hamster is still running on the wheel up there regardless if she came in last place. All I have to say about the over appearance of these women is: the judges secretly replaced all the stylists with those on crack from the 80's. All the dresses were ugly, the makeup was clownlike and the hair was downright awful - I'm talking like future Newscaster awful. My sister even remarked on how much like a car wreck it was, it's horrible but you can't stop staring.

6 prayers | 05:15 PM

MXC

It's Thursday night, cable is offering two shows, Weather Porn and MXC on Spike TV. After watching some dude get blown away on the weather channel, Patrick and I sought out something different. We stumbled across MXC, Most Extreme Elimination Challenge, which struck out eye with the two Japanese hosts dressed up in outlandish and oversized silver, lamet samurai outfits. Of course we had to continue to watch the show to see what the deal was.

It turns out to be a Japanese show that is dubbed into English. The creators of the show watched a previous challenge show similar to an amateur gladiator with typical Japanese bizareness and then wrote a script around the show. At one point Patrick and Kris were wondering how long it would take for the muscles of my bladder would cease to function properly and release the contents on the love seat.

The first episode we watched was absolutely fantastic using a lot of poop humour like this pool sponsored by Dirty Sanchez Septic. There was a jousting event, many gaunlet events, a log roll event, a rope swing with velcro jumping, and my personal favourite a Frogger-esque stone jump across a swamp. If you're ever bored and want to veg on an evening when this show is on, check it out. It's further proof that the Japanese are from another planet.

10 prayers | 11:16 PM

Morningstar’s Chik’N Pot Pie with Vegetables

Sometimes when you’re craving fat in your food and opt to go a healthier round with something that you haven’t eaten before, just go with the artery clogging goodness. Today I was trying to figure out what I wanted to eat for lunch, I looked at eggplant parm, chicken parm, pizza, and other numminess that would have left me feeling guilty throughout the remainder of the day. I pass by the Morningstar Farms section of the freezer case and see the dreaded Chik’N Pot Pie (now referred to as PP).

I love Pot Pie, more specifically, I love the pot pie flaky fat laden crust. So some info on the PP: 350 Calories, 14g Total Fat, 3.5g saturated, 0mg Cholesterol, 880mg Sodium, 46g total carbs (9g dietary fiber), 13g protein. There’s not a lot of fat in this, for PP standards and I trust Morningstar’s sausage. Well the crust is completely wrong, I thought at first that I didn’t microwave it long enough and continued to cook it. It turned out to be half crispy, half rubber with the flavor of cardboard.

The liquid inside the PP wasn’t as liquidy as regular PP probably because it wasn’t made with dead animal juices. The actual only good thing about this PP was the faux chicken – it was chewy like PP chicken without the worry if it’s ridden with salmonella or from what part of the chicken was its origin. However, I couldn’t withstand the taste any longer and gave it the ole heave ho into my wastebasket where it properly belongs – or in a compost heap becoming soil for future pumpkin growth.

After trashing the dish I decided to heat up Lean Cuisine’s Cheese Ravioli with Chunky Tomato Sauce and I would like to say that the box for once actually shows the correct number of raviolis hiding in it’s black plastic tray, six of them to be exact. Six little square cheese raviolis frozen in the darkness of the office freezer waited patiently from the day I bought them several weeks ago to be heated up and turned into nutrients and poop. They were quite tasty.

3 prayers | 02:29 PM

Bitterdiva on giving birth…

…to art that is. Although I haven’t laboriously squeezed an eight-pound crying infant past my cervix, I have found that giving birth to art is bloody difficult. As a writer, I can create any world fantastical or not with words and have the reader form a picture of that world in their own mind. As an artist I have found that I just cannot bring forth this world using pictures, especially pictures that I must create.

Sure, creating a montage, collage, or a Photoshop piece should not be difficult since I take bits and pieces from other things and transport them into the world I am creating – but it is. Unless something good pops in my mind like the piece I did on robots attacking Albany, my thought pool is dryer than lizard skin in the Sahara.

Pat made a suggestion to write a paragraph about what I want to create and translate it into a piece of artwork. Since most of my writing is either fantasy or horror and most of my dreams are also surreal, I’m worried that my classmates would think I’ve got more issues than Stan Lee. Which I do naturally, but I don’t think I want to bring them to the forefront of the class.

Another issue is that I am to think about what I want to viewer to perceive and to take away. I can clearly see the parallel between art and literature (I’ve taken a class on this before) and that a story isn’t merely a story, but a tale of something deeper if you delve into it – sort of how John Steinbeck’s Chrysanthemums isn’t a story about a women’s flowers but a sordid tale of sexual frustration.

I am working on a piece right now, or was in class and as we all know shit done in class is not as good as shit done sitting at home relaxed with pirated mp3s and beer in a pint glass. Which reminds me, time to grab the Homer Simpson beer opener and my last Shipyard Pumpkinhead Ale and get to work.

Correlating to the beer, I went to Mahar’s last night. They have Post Road Pumpkin Ale on tap, Dogfish Head Punkin Ale (bottle), and there is also a Blue Moon Harvest Pumpkin Ale. I’ve had the Post Road Pumpkin on tap and in bottle and I must say that for the first time the bottled beer tastes better than the draught beer. I did not sample the Blue Moon Harvest Pumpkin Ale, that’ll be next trip. I also need to try the Smuttynose Pumpkin Ale that I saw at Olivers. Yes, I am a pumpkin ale freak and thus far out of the Dogfish Head, Post Road (made by Brooklyn Brewery), and Shipyard, the best is Shipyard’s Pumpkinhead Ale – it’s like drinking pumpkin pie out of a bottle.

3 prayers | 07:51 PM

Man in black

This morning driving to work, late because I can without Kristian, I heard the depressing news that Johnny Cash died. And when I heard this, I immediately thought of my father, he'll certainly be bummed. There are very few things in the world that when I think of them they'll remind me of my dad and Johnny was one of them - in fact he was the prominent one.

Not to be overshadowed by Johnny's death but John Ritter died as well. So here are two big whammies in one day, on a Friday. Although Cash was the Man, but Ritter was one of my first tv crushes when I was a wee lass. Perhaps I need to go home this evening and watch Stephen King's IT in honour or catch some old reruns of Three's Company on Nick at Nite.

This day sucks and if it wasn't for the bloody fact that T's out today, I would just go home at noon. Yet again another instance of me not wanting to call in but dragging ass to work and having been beaten by the sick game. In order to hide the fact that I look like complete and utter crap with dark circles under my eyes, I do up my hair and slop on some make-up. I've noticed something, even if your dressed in jeans and sneakers if you're wearing lipstick people will say you look great.

6 prayers | 08:48 AM

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday to the Squirrel King, Chief Mofo, Supreme Overlord of Woboland, and Pirate Lord Kristian

3 prayers | 10:25 AM

When Robots Go Bad

Yesterday while I was driving to week two of my electronic art class I was looking at the skyline of Albany and a thought popped in my mind, similar to Ray in Ghostbusters, except it wasn't of the Staypuft Marshmellow man. It was of Robots attacking the Plaza. Perhaps it is all the rememberance speak of 9/11 that planted this deviant idea in my brain, perhaps it's just synchronicity.

It's not finished, I think I'm going to take out the "Lost in Space" robot and add a smaller version of the Godzilla-fire-breathing robot but with an army. Kris told me that I didn't have to actually put robots in all of my pictures perhaps this will be the only one.

On another note, last night we watched a homage to PSA school films with the little beep that occurs at the end of the time you change the picture. It's at Applied Autonomy and the film is entitled, "Little Brother Gets Busted." It's an absolute hoot and I couldn't help but laugh that apparently the people at Applied Autonomy also have a thing for robots. I should have known that some of these folks are from Troy.

7 prayers | 09:15 AM

September & Chilly = Autumn

My declaration of the day: it is officially autumn regardless of what you grumpy hot weather sun worshipers may say – it’s undeniably autumn-like outside. The sun’s setting at 7:27 tonight, the temperature is currently 70 degrees, classes have started, apples are in abundance, and Macintosh is the featured scent at Yankee Candle. Time to break out the darker colours and the heavier fabrics because summer has been given the dementor’s kiss.

Speaking of class, last night was my first of the semester: Introduction to Electronic Arts. I had been panicking up until this class wondering if I had made a right decision and the reasoning behind this was that the course description spoke of various forms of art reproduced electronically. I could pass as a decent photography, photoshoper, and the area is grey when it comes to drawing but what I have no talent in is music and this was one art form that was to be covered. I can now report that my mind has been eased with the fact that music won’t be covered and I will not have to make a fool out of myself with some disjointed and mangled excuse for a piece.

Will I enjoy this course? I have an inkling that I will when we’ll be using Photoshop and Dreamweaver as our primary software applications. One of the assignments involves heading to an industrial area and shooting a roll of film there – that’s the one project that I’m looking forward to. Why? Because Kris has tainted me with his love of industrial settings and we’ll have to bring the file to Kinkos to print out. I might even be able to give him a nice picture to hang up in his barren room.

Tonight we’re making standard collages with good ole fashioned scissors and gluesticks. I think that should be fun, but I don’t know if I’ll come up with any good ideas or from where we’ll obtain our pictures. It’s a pleasant change from all the science crap that I did during college to which I wasn’t anywhere as good as I am being creative.

8 prayers | 02:04 PM