My great-uncle died this weekend. We weren't real close or anything, but we did talk. I'm sad, but not unhappy. He was old and he was sick, and he was stuck in a nursing home as well as a dying shell. He's in a better place now.

Anyway, the funeral is on Thursday.

In better news, check it out: http://entervoid.com/character.php?id=1596

I might as well since I can't seem to get paid for it.

What makes it fantasy? Why the dragon skull I smacked in the middle of it. What makes it a dragon skull? The horns I cropped because of empty space.

Well the third 'Eragon' book came out. Yay. I have of course, already downloaded my own free copy from the internetz. Take that Paolini!

Mm. Maybe even a year ago I could have sneered at this, but in my old age all I can do is snarl a bit and, under my breath, mutter "Lucky bastard..." Because now that I'm all grown up and rudderless, all I really want is to be successful. Successful and RICH. I don't care how.

So bravo, Christopher Paolini. You shit gold. That's awesome.


*sighs* In more cheerful news, I finally went to Sonic last week. YES PEOPLE! BURNSVILLE HAS A SONIC! I swear, Highway 42 won't really be complete until it's managed to assimilate every fast food restaurant on Earth. (Shit people, we even have a new theater that's based on the city of Atlantis. And it has a BAR.) But I digress, my opinion on Sonic was not... favorable.

It wasn't worth it. The food was about as good (or bad) as McDonald's and the wait was 30 minutes in the drive-through. About half-way through the wait I would have said 'fuck it' and left, but we were already stuck between two cars and a railing. :(


One more bit of news. Then I'm done. Alyssa won a $50 giftcard and a whole bunch of Reese's Pieces at work on Monday! Cub Foods has been celebrating their 40th Anniversary with a bunch of raffles and contests for both customers and employees. Last week we had a traditional 'guess how many M&Ms are in these bags' contest. There were four bags in various sizes with giftcard prizes and I WON THE BIGGEST ONE! I guessed 600 Reese's Pieces in the largest bag and there were 604! And I got to eat the things too! (I'm eating them right now! They're blue and black for some reason!)

Boy, that sure made the 7.5 hour shift go by a little faster! Okay, I'll see you all later!

DAKTRONICS DUMPED ME.


*whinewhinedepressingwhinegrumblegrumblecrysuicidalthoughtsterrorpanicpanicdepression*


I WILL PERSEVERE.

*BEEP*

"You have. 1. New Message."

*BEEP*

"Um, hey... it's me. Well it's been two weeks since... you know. And well, you haven't called me... (Sigh) I just... is everything okay? Between us I mean?

"I know you've been seeing other people. Maybe I'm just being stupid. I mean, I just thought we really had something special. I didn't come on too strong or anything... did I?

"Please... just call me back when you get this message. I really just... I want to know if you thought there was something... something...

"Just call me back.

"I love you, Daktronics."

*BEEP*

"End Message."

"So what are your interests? Any hobbies?" the young lady purred over her latte. She batted her eyelashes at the man sitting across from her. He was tall and slim. He wore a top hat.

"Well, I like long walks on the beach. Sunsets. Drinking coffee with charming company," he said. She laughed softly. "But seriously, I'm interested in American freedom, peace, and happiness. In my spare time I stalk the streets looking for injustice and wrongs to be righted. It gives me the deepest pleasure to put bad guys behind bars."

He paused for a moment. "I also like the theatre."

"Maybe we can see a movie later... at my apartment," she said with an alluring smile.

BEEPBEEPBEEP!

"Damn," the man said as he leaped out of his chair. He ran out the door shouting, "I'll call you."

Abraham Lincoln jumped into his hover car and zoomed over to secret headquarters.

"I got the distress call," he said as he walked into the control center. The control center was large and filled with many screens that showed the status of the entire world. "What is it? Alien attack? A phantom necromancer? Have the abominable snowmen come back?"

"No," said Sonic the Hedgehog. It's worse than all of that. Bruce Willis is running for president."

Abraham Lincoln smacked his forehead. "Why didn't you talk him out of it?"

"Robotnik held up the Applebee's last night. I was helping with the hostage negotiations. I can't be in two places at once."

"And Darkwing Duck is still taming that uprising in Guam" Lincoln muttered. "Okay, let me go talk to him. Maybe the clone of a former president can talk some sense into that head of his."

"Good luck with that," Sonic laughed. A screen flashed and Sonic ran out the door, a blue blur on his way to fight giant squid in the South Pacific.

"Oh fuck you," Lincoln muttered.

TO BE CONTINUED...

So I can't go to the party tonight. Moose_Punter had an interview with Daktronics last week and they asked if could send in some stills of my 3-D work. So I'm working on that.

But... I thought the interview went pretty well. They seemed to like me. All six of them. If they hire me I'll be a Motion Graphics Artist, which sounds pretty catchy. And I'll be moving to Brookings, South Dakota, which seemed like a nice little town.

Yes, the interview took place in South Dakota. Me and my Mom drove down the night before and Daktronics PAID FOR OUR HOTEL ROOM. It made me feel like a movie star.

We'll see. They said they'd call me in a couple weeks...

Anyway, I've been reading and watching some new stuff lately. I've been on a real Batman kick ever since I saw the new movie. (Pretty good but the slow spots were total mood-killers.) I picked up volumes 1 and 3 of Batman: The Animated Series (the 90's cartoon) and they were TOTALLY AWESOME. Everything about that show was top-notch, and I just have to get my hands on the other two volumes.

My friend Kyle has also been loaning me some comics. So I have 'Hush' under my belt now, as well as Alan Moore's Killing Joke. I borrowed a book on Alan Moore one-shot comics and that guy can write up a storm. (He wrote Watchmen of course, very good stuff.) Too bad he comes off as such a dick in the interviews I've read.

What else... read the first three volumes of Amazing X-men. Pretty decent. Watched the first season of MTV's Spider-man. Okay, but some of the character treatments were weak and the CGI was better suited to a commercial than a TV show. 'Old Boy' and 'Lady Vengeance' which are a couple asian revenge flicks. Pretty weird, pretty bloody, and definitely cool in their own right. Umm... When Harry Met Sally...?

Yeah, expect my graduation party soon. I'll e-mailin' soon.

Would you people hate me if I moved to South Dakota?

Daktronics is apparently 'strongly considering' me for a position as a Digital Artist. It's not exactly the direction I was hoping to go in, but a job's a job. And I can always work on my own stuff in the off hours.

Right now they gave me a sort of test. I'm supposed to do some short animated ads for Mardi Gras and Autumn. It actually relieves me quite a bit that they're doing so. I have an idea of what they are expecting of me now. I'm not just applying blind.

It also gives me some badly needed focus. The last couple of weeks I've been completely scatter-brained. I didn't know what I wanted to work on. I wanted to improve my modeling, my drawing skills. I wanted to do some lip-synching. I wanted to work on a comic... *sigh* You can't work on it all at once you know.

But we'll see. Tomorrow I'll have to phone up my resume packages too and see how that goes down.

In other news. Gotham Knight was really neat. I'm beginning to think that Batman is more of an American icon than Superman. After all, he's way more popular.

Well anyone who knows me, knows how things are. Not great. But better than they were. But not since May. Since May, things are much worse. But since November things are looking up slightly. Which in and of itself may be a reason for suspicion.

School is looming over me. Again. And my past failures leave me feeling a definite lack of confidence. I don't want to go back willy-nilly. I want to go back prepared. Maybe even more than just prepared. PRETTY MUCH FINISHED would be the term I'd choose. I don't want to let myself down again and even less so, the people who support me. Which is damn well near everyone. (Even the JURY MEMBERS wished me luck. Which reminds me, I'll have to tell you all about jury duty sometime.) So thus I've begun prepping my next project. I have a good bit of the animatic done, and during that I'm animating some other things.

Hopefully, I won't mess up.

In the meanwhile, I'm pretty concerned about money and where that money is going. Firstmark and Sallie Mae have monthly bills that need paying. I also have the nagging suspicion that I might owe the school some money, but I believe it's within a reasonable amount. I then have to concern myself with what I need to pay the school for the next quarter. Over all that, I now pay rent to my parents. It's very reasonable, and at this point they need it. You all know that America is looking at a recession.

Quite honestly, I'm a little scared about it. But my mom's friend gave me this really awesome book that might alleviate some of that worry. I can't remember the title of it right now, but it's a book for artists and illustrators. It has thousands of companies all in tidy little piles under labels such as 'Greeting Cards', 'Magazines', 'Books', and 'Posters'. It tells you what they are looking for, what you should send them, how many people they hire per year, and even what they'll pay you. It's great, because it's totally within my power to draw and paint those sorts of things. And it's not a bad thing to put in your resume.

Well that's it for now. Next time, perhaps I'll reveal my thoughts on the Nickelodeon Project.

That should be enough to scare you.

I'm quitting Game. When you suddenly realize that you're not having fun anymore and you find yourself feeling more upset at the end of your fun time then you are at the beginning... that's the time when you just have to give it up. It's nobody's fault but my own. I just can't seem to have a good time anymore and I feel like I'm dragging everyone down with my bad attitude and my open criticism. I don't want how I act during game to affect the rest of the time I spend with my friends either.

That is all.

Well, I'm feeling much less nervous now than I was a couple weeks ago. I got a job at the Cub Foods, working as a deli person. Apparently I'm going to have an insane amount of work to do just learning my job. I need to be able to work all the machines, cook the food, as well as work with the customers, clean dishes, scrub floors and what not. I also need to be cross-trained in all the stuff that non-deli people do. The good news about all that is that I'm not going to get bored of my job. Not like working as a cashier. The bad news is that I have to join the Union. And pay DUES. And an ENTRANCE FEE. The entrance fee is $100, paid over four months, and then they take $14 straight out of my paycheck. Very lame. But get this, I get medical and dental in only ONE YEAR! :D Still, it pays more than my old job did.

Also, I got to pay Firstmark and Sallie Mae yesterday. Such a relief. My school gave me a $1600 refund check because I'm not taking classes this quarter, but loan money still got sent to my school. They can't send it back, so they give it to me. I was suspicious when I got it, so I asked Accounting about how I should handle it. They said I could either give it back, or use it now and owe it later. I already owe so much that this is like a drop in the bucket, and using this instead of waiting for my first paycheck was so much easier.

Also, it meant I could buy Venture Brothers Season Two without feeling terrible. I watched it yesterday and it was AWESOME. Better than the first season was, especially the last four episodes. The finale was quite a bit different than first season's finale was, but the dramatic angle was done really well. I was completely satisfied with it... up until the scene at the end of the credits where it leaves you with a cliffhanger. I was so pissed off that I shrieked "No! Why would you do this to me?!" There weren't as many special features as the first season, but watching the storyboards for the deleted scenes was interesting. The 'tour' of Astrobase Go was sometimes funny. The style of the DVD menu was also pretty neat. It was set up like a strip of film in one of those old projector machines and when you wanted to go to a new menu, say the special features, it would hick-up and then take you past all the other menus as it went down the film. (Horrible explanation. I can only hope my readers understand what the hell I'm talking about. Just watch the damned thing.)

Now to completely change subjects without any sort of easing in, the Nickelodeon project is coming along... very slowly. All the earlier ideas were scrapped in favor of a new and shiny ideas involving a group of misfit superheroes and a super villain who's more competent than all of them combined. The superhero spoof has been done before, but some of the ideas we came up with on Tuesday were really quite fresh. A only have two small nitpicks that I'll bring up when we talk about it later today.

1) Baron Von Khaos' name-- Too much like Professor Chaos from South Park. We ought to stay away completely from 'chaos' and I still don't feel enough punch from it. It's like Cyber, just meh.

2) Major Muscle-- I just don't know about him. I love the name pun, but can we make him different enough from all the other Incredible Hulk spoofs? I don't want people to see Krunk when they look at him. Motherboard and the Fast I see no problems with but him... mmmm...

I really just want to see it all done so we can start animating.

That is all.

So I guess I'll update again, since I have nothing to do for the next half-hour. I'm in school despite not actually belonging at school right now. But I doubt anybody cares, or would if they realized it.

Right now I'm kind of nervous because I need to pay my loans, but I don't have any money. I really really need a job, yet Target and Blockbuster are taking their sweet time reviewing applications. But I went to the job fair on Wednesday to see what was available and the Mall of America is hiring in a lot of places, especially The Park. (God that name sucks.) Some of the jobs even pay $8.80, which is a whole lot more than Target would be paying me, plus I'd have reliable transportation with the 444 bus schedule. I think I'll head down there tomorrow to take a shot at it.

But anyway, I guess I should say something about LAST Thursday, since my so-called friends (which are probably reading this right now and actually looking at the goddamned Youtube video RIGHT NEXT TO ME! DAMNIT I DO NOT WANT TO SEE HOW RETARDED I ACT! I'M NEVER GETTING DRUNK AGAIN! NOT EVER!) will never let me forget about it. Yes, it was a fun party. What I remember of it anyway.

Now I'll completely switch subjects and will never come back to the subject of whatever happened during that party. (I didn't embarrass myself TOO horribly. At least I wasn't the one chatting about dancing topless on a tabletop.)

I've been thinking about entering the Tokyopop Rising Stars Contest. I have no idea when the next one is. Tokyopop's just getting over the last one. I sort of hope they go back to the old "Just Do Awesome Work" thing instead of this "Genre-Based" crap, as it's sort of unfair to the artists. I mean, if you had two awesome comedy entries, only one would win! How unfair is that? But obviously it means I'd just have to try harder. My only concern right now is that the story I'm thinking about is 'mostly' comedy, but also a few other things, so I'm afraid that classifying it as a comedy would ruin its chances of winning. Because it wouldn't be exactly what they were looking for.

I suppose I would have to rely on People's Choice, which has a lower payoff. Am I good enough for that? The answer is "possibly". And also "damned if I know. Let me try first".

Well that's it for this edition of stupid life things.

So I did a 'meme quiz' my pally, Dusky_Rue, did. Came out a little long. But okay.

(Click here to post your own answers for this meme.)

✓ I miss somebody right now.  (My teacher. My Noob spirit.)	✓ I don't watch much TV these days.  (No fucking cable. I've been living in a dreamworld for over a year.)	✓ I own lots of books.  (Mostly fantasy, very little depressing.)
✓ I wear glasses or contact lenses.  (I want contact lenses again.)	✓ I love to play video games.  (Occasionally I'll sit down to beat some game. Gotta be a cool game though.)	× I've tried marijuana.
× I've watched porn movies.	× I have been the psycho-ex in a past relationship.	✓ I believe honesty is usually the best policy.  (Usually is. Leaves you feeling better about yourself then a pack of lies.)
✓ I curse sometimes.  (But only if the situation really calls for it.)	✓ I have changed a lot mentally over the last year.  (It's called 'burn-out'.)	× I carry my knife/razor everywhere with me.

( it goes on... )

Well I started this live journal after a lot of crap went down. Basically I've been a total sleaze concerning my homework for the past three months and I can't pass Computer Animation Studio, the last class I need to graduate. The only class I was taking this quarter. Since I can't graduate this quarter and I don't have any money for next quarter, I have to drop out.

Or as I like to call it, 'taking a leave of absence.' Because apparently there is a form for that and I'll be attending the Summer quarter. In the meanwhile I have to get a job and start paying bills, but to tell you the truth, I'm sort of relieved because I was NOT ready to graduate. My reel is total crap and having six more months to complete it fills me with utter glee.

And I realized today that if I'm going to be back for Summer quarter, I'm going to have a chance to enter Blockhead, our school's animation festival, again. Last year I did this 'fat cat stealing a sandwhich' thing, but I half-assed a lot of it. This year I want to do something really cool.

In other news, I discovered Beksinski. Man that guy painted creepy stuff.