Incite Full

Of course today is going to be better, the NCAA Tournament starts today! Lets go Men of Troy and Badgers, While only one of you can advance, I win either way, right?

So if I thought last week was rollercoasting, then this week has been a God damned trip to the top of a mountain, only to have the most massive earthquake phase shift the thing I plummet back to the earth.  I gain my footing, only to trip over a branch. That’s probably as close to what has happened to me- but hey. I have my health, right?

Mammoth was simply amazing, I had a blast with Eisha and Stephan, and when Tommy and Matt finally showed up, we had some epic times. And Matt has the scars to prove it.

Monday sucked, stressful day at work and then a car accident… Tuesday was full of meetings, and then figuring out car shit, Wednesday was equally uneventful, minus the fact that Top Chef was on and I was reminded about how silly the female species is. Which is quite a lot, I might add.

We’ll see if today is better, and if I get my hands on some sourdough bread, you bet your ass it will be.

A bit more in depth,  I understand completely how not seeing a person for two weeks can cause you to ‘forget’ about said person, but what I don’t understand is keeping that information to ones self, or not giving things an honest chance. I’m not bitter- This is exactly the way I want things to happen- meet someone, see how it goes, and then move on or stay put. Simple, right? The problems come in when both people don’t see eye to eye, or unwilling to try to do that.

I’m as guilty of that last one as anyone.

Another thing that I, too, am guilty of is the “I’m just being honest” shield.  It’s good to be honest, yes. But it doesn’t mean the other person can’t have emotion about the situation. If you say something that makes me angry, and then follow up with the dubious “I’m just being honest,” does that somehow invalidate what I’m feeling? Lets try some examples:

person1:Hey we need to talk.
person2: Ok?
person1:You’re a little bitch.
person2:… wha..?
person1:I’m just being honest!

Obviously person 2 is over reacting, I mean, honesty is good right? Well yes it is, but that’s not the point, the point is some people get upset with what you say, regardless of the truth of the statement or not.  It seems so honest, but when it’s all one can say- that you’re being honest, it doesn’t give a lot of explanation.

And while we’re on the subject, yeah, friends don’t start out passionately, I’d have to say. They can- it happens, but not often. To compliment, I’ve got enough friends in my life that I don’t need to try and make new ones- I’ll still be open and receptive if it happens, but I’m not going to go out of my way. I’m just being honest.

Overnight, I have become a professional web designer.

It came unexpectedly, to be honest. An innocent email shows up in my inbox, asking for a graphic designer for a new website, and so I think to myself, I may as well. So I throw together a few sample (you can see them too!) pieces, as well as a template to a site I created a long while back. Lo and behold, today I’m designing a web site.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been on that horse. And there is a lot I need to remember and pickup, but it’s great to be generally excited about a lot of things right now. New opportunities, new people, new everything. These new people want me to work 100% time on this, and I doubt that will happen, but I’ll still get the work done. And it makes me want to work on a bunch of other stuff, mostly as creative outlet. And i think i’m going to have to follow through on some of these.

The first is still me kitchen web-app. But after that I think I’m going to try my hand at a cssZenGarden design, just for fun. Check that out, and you’ll be amazed at the web (if you know anything about CSS).

Man, things are going well today.

It’s currently 1:14 A.M. (PST, if you care) and I absolutely cannot sleep.

I funny thing happened to me, right before I went to sleep- I read an article. The article dealt with an issue that is very near to my heart, and probably many others, although who am I to put thoughts in people’s heads, other than an expert manipulator. However, a rush of emotions was set off, causing panic, euphoria, anxiety, fear, happiness, sadness, and the rest of Noah’s ark of  emotions. Only they don’t really come two by two.

It’s something that I know happens, but never realized with a cognizant manner what was happening. Simply reading about these issues, my body and mind were brought to a place where these emotions commonly manifest themselves. You can do this with anything, photos, books, movies, porn. All design to make you feel a certain way.I’m sure advertisers try and leverage this against us. Why are all late night ads about food or some shitty school? Maybe because the type of person up at 3am doesn’t have that 9-5 job? These ads fail though, because they are targeting a need, no matter how manufactured or necessary, that the person has not experienced.

Sure they’ve been hungry before, but not the way they are hungry right now. What if an add for a cologne some how made you think of the worst smells in your memory? Something so offensive and intoxicating that the only way you could get through the rest of the day was to know, and i’ve never meant the word more powerfully, that the smell was gone.

What would that commercial look like? To me, it’d probably be a wet dog, or a still camera shot of the grungiest, dirtiest toilet. That shit (pun intended) would make me want to by all of the following products: cologne,  toilet paper, lint remover, antiseptic, odor eliminators, etc.

I think I missed my calling.

Anyone reading this is very happy about it.

So this week has been a roller coaster week to be certain. the title of Monday’s (or was it Tuesday’s) entry was more prophetic than it was recounting, which is scary. Just in case, let me just say I love being a millionaire. Here is hoping.

At work, issues of reading files have been driving me nuts, especially when everything works perfectly, and then others are change their files without my knowledge. If this makes no sense to you, imagine learning to drive (for some of you, this is harder than others), and then, without your knowledge, left turns on red become legal, right of way becomes left of way, and speed limits are actually followed. It’s similar enough to driving, but not the same. This is exactly what happened at work. Fixing the issue was simple, but the monetary damage of driving is the pride of coding, and I felt this one remarkably close to home. Besides, why don’t people follow the standards?

Other than that, a lot of the other things I’ve done this week came together and worked great for test 1, and tests 2-10 million are next week, so we’ll see.

Last night, after work, Stephanie and I went to the Farmer’s market. If you don’t know Stephanie, you’ll know her soon. There is a picture of what she would like you to think she looks like to the left. We headed off to the farmer’s market in South Pasadena, where these “Green parrots” were making so much noise. I quote this mostly because I feel Steph is way off, they are bats. Or some migratory bird that is more akin to a buzzard than a parrot. In any event, they were not talking.

I picked up some sourdough bread, sweet I-talian basil, and some broccoli. To be honest, everything there looks great, I just wasn’t in the mood to get vegetables or oranges, which is mostly what they had.

After eating papusas, and a bunch of fat jokes, we headed to Le Petit Vendome, for our weekly wine tasting. I say weekly, and mean random Thursday night encounters, but it was a great night. We always skip whites, Stephanie because she hates them, me because I’m a sheep. Actually, I just don’t know enough about wine and want to be able to talk about it with someone. That and I don’t want to pay 38 dollars for wine tastings. Which I almost did anyways.

It would be a crime for me to omit the cheese we had. Unfortunately, one was forgettable, and the other’s name escapes me- but it was a sheep’s milk cheese from Spain (I think). The aged Wisconsin Cheddar was simply amazing, though. I could buy and eat pounds of this stuff for dinner. Imagine the most perfect cheese you’ve ever had, and this one beats it, as far as I’m concerned. I’m thinking cheddar muffins, are in the future.

Next time I’ll have to try the aged Chimay.

After that we went to Magnolia, where we got some drinks, discussed life and all of its glory, and strolled home. That was it, although I did make bacon upone my return for today’s sourdough carnivastic sandwhich. I can still taste it now.