Craziest dream ever

OK folks I'm going to try and keep this short: I just had the craziest dream of my life. 

I was with Carlos and Ludwig up in Harlem. Ludwig was with this foxy girl who was going to buy us beer and we were walking around with her. At one point we went into the store and decided to walk all the way to the back as not to rise suspicions. 

What  seemed like 30 minutes later we were all exhausted and reached the end of the store. 

"Damn, this store is really big" Carlos said.

At this stage, chocolate syrup started oozing out of my mouth a little bit. I was wearing a white sweater and didn't want to mess it up so I just kept swallowing. 

We walked out of the store and saw a group of hoodlums had smashed like 200 car windows and gathered all the bits of glass making a gigantic, glistening pile stopping traffic. Walking down the street I kept drooling chocolate. These kids came up behind us and we all stopped like badasses and stared them down and they walked away.

Then, one of them came back with a big stick and smashed Ludwig in the back of the leg with it. He started to run and I ran after him screaming "STOP IT ASSHOLE" and next thing I know a big fat woman is holding her son, crying and screaming "DO NO NOT CALL MY SON AN ASSHOLE"

Since apparently I'm awesome in my dreams I just walked towards her and said "FUCK YOU" and she and her son sort of disappeared. Poof. Into thin air.

People, this is where it gets crazy. Especially if your name is Ludwig Persik:

In the dream, I realized I was dreaming. For me, that's very rare. Then I realized that I was LUDWIG PERSIK dreaming. My voice turned into Ludwig's and I had a fucking monologue in the middle of the street. Something like:

"Ah, the fragility of dreams.

How one can wipe chocolate saliva off his lip

but instead accidentally smudge the

words he was about to speak 

all over his hands..."

Next thing I know I'm choking on that chocolate syrup and am forced to wake up. I had drooled EVERYWHERE and slept for like three hours. I realized I was just Ludwig and flipped out.

Yeesh.

Zombay!

Today in class I made another person I dreamt about into a drawing. This one was a Zombie. He was hanging onto the side of my raft and trying to capsize it. He probably wanted to kill me and then eat my brains:

Meh. I guess they can't all be masterpieces.

Over the hill

You know how old people do stupid things and then say other stupid things like "Oh, I'm getting old" or "Don't get old!" or "I'm miserable"?

The other day, for the first time, I pulled one of those and I accidently pulled it again today.

Turns out my birthday is this Sunday. Usually, I always remember my birthday. I keep it in the back of my mind and when it's a month away I start biting my nails, excited for the shower of presents and Facebook comments that I will soon receive. 

This year however, as my mind slips into the oblivion of dementia, I seemed to have forgotten.

The other day talking to Carlos he asked "Is your birthday coming up?" and I said, promptly, "I don't think so"

Today in class the same question was asked and I said "I think it's in a couple of weeks".

Well, It's in a couple of days.

Dear Starlets, if this gets worst please just pull the plug.

Also: IN ONE MORE POST WE WILL NEVER HAVE TO HEAR "LIVE LONG IN PROSPER" AGAIN! THE TIME HAS COME!

Breaking Bad

Watching TV on DVD's is a zillion times better than the regular way. It usually has a better picture and sounds nicer, there are no commercials, you can watch it whenever you want and as many in a row as you want and it brings the social element into play. Back in the day, I used to wait to talk to my friends about shows because we weren't with each other whenever it was on TV. Now, with DVDs you can have massive festivals where you watch a series over a period of time (or all at once) with your buddy right there.

That being said, yesterday I was in Borders looking for a Blue-Ray (I need a monthly fix) and couldn't find one in a reasonable price-range with enough explosions. Instead I saw "Breaking Bad" season 1 on sale. I decided to take a gamble. I wish my luck buying lotto tickets was as good as my luck buying TV Shows on DVD. I'd have a thousand dollars by now (which would go towards 500 lotto tickets, which would give me millions. Scratch that. Billions).

First thing I noticed when I popped the DVD in my laptop was something incredible. I mean, something really, really remarkable. Something I think that all of the TV DVDs should have, but never do. Something that has ground my fucking gears for so long has finally been fixed. I know this bothers you too, starlet, so prepare to have your mind blown. Exhibit A:

Yes. Look closely, people. Before watching a bunch of episodes you are asked if you want to watch it with recaps. Therefore, indirectly, that means you can watch as many episodes as you want without sitting through five minute recaps of something you just fucking watched.

This has always been one of my pet peeves. The most guilty offender of this horrible crime against home entertainment is "Rescue Me". The re-caps are incredibly long, incredibly thorough and stretch five episodes back. Sometimes, if it's really bad, hitting "skip" on the remote won't even take you to the beginning of the episode but a few minutes in. That is the worst. I hope every Television show released on DVD takes this amazing, courageous step made by the people behind "Breaking Bad" as an example of how to make every one's lives easier.

My mind was already blown before even watching the show. Before I continue on let me say I'm only five episodes in so I can't vouch for the entire thing. However, from what I have seen so far there is only one conclusion I can make:

I'm serious folks. The writing is pretty solid. The acting (at least by the two main characters) is prime shit. It's shot beautifully and the soundtrack is even better. It's gut wrenchingly dark and the actor who's name I should know but still call "Malcom's Dad" goes above and beyond what is usually asked of actors on contemprary television. Really folks, I'm giving this such a huge endorsement.

I try not to write about shit like this but I'm legitimately excited about this one. I can't wait to bring her back to New York and watch it all over again with Carlito.

Girl sneezes 60 times a minute?

I made this video yesterday to post here as a funny little nothing. Well, it's been up for less than 24 hours and already has 186 views. What the fuck Youtube? Really?

It's at 321 views now. Thats about a hundred views a day. This is really blowing my mind.

Traffic Jam

There are a few posts on this blog that readers always seem to remember and bring up. The first and most obvious was "Things I Always Wanted..." which was written a very, very long time ago (back in 2007!). It comes up in conversation between friends frequently and is responsible for a huge amount of traffic on this blog. Not because people want to read it but because it has the text "Sock-Em-Bopper Jingle" written in it. Every time someone googles that (which according to Site Meter happens a lot in Canada) they go to my blog. Do they read the post? Of course not.

Another entry that comes up a lot was when I wrote about the amount of readers drastically decreasing. It was called Negative Slope and had a diagram of the views per month sliding into nothingness. That post gets mentioned a lot and it should because even now, looking back at it, I think it's really fucking funny.

Why am I bringing these up? Obviously because I'm a self indulgent asshole. But more importantly because I have a sort of sequel or update-ish post to write in regards to the latter. 

The other day I was on Site Meter and I realized that the month of March hit an almost all time high number of visits. It seems I have gotten what I wanted and am back on the bandwagon. I thank you wonderful readers and pat myself on the back (which I usually do frequently after completing the most mundane tasks anyway). 

In honor the the Pan-Flute/Ski-Slope, I make a new diagram.

It's not a ghetto Pan-flute anymore, starlets. Oh, no. It's now a mighty and majestic Orchestral Flute that only the most renowned Flautists have the courage to toot.

In other news, I'm growing more and more sick of the "Live Long and Prosper"  message that keeps coming up when the page is loaded. I counted and only have 4 more posts till' it's bumped into oblivion but don't know if I can go that long. You?

Best saturday ever

Today is one of the better Saturday's I have had out here in Chicago. I woke up early and walked down to the Field Museum with a good buddy of mine. It was very warm and sunny which is somewhat surreal since I have been spending the last few months checking for frostbite after commutes home. 

The day got better when I decided to do what should have been done a long time ago. I went to Walgreen's and got myself a Snuggie. It even came with that shitty little book light (which, strangely enough, I already have). 

I also bought two pints of Ice-Cream because they were on sale and insanely cheap. The minute I stepped into the building it started raining. Really, really hard. this is wonderful because I love the sound and smell of a rainstorm from the inside. 

I don't have to tell you what I have been doing all day, starlets. 

Also, I'm going to be back in New York City where I belong very, very soon. Can't wait to be home. Can. Not. Wait.

HUGE NEWS

Tonight after I clean my room I'm going to clean my face up a bit. That means the Amish beard is going but I'm going to do something risky and daring. 

Leave my moustache.

It's a risky move because I don't have a full moustache but I will never know if I can pull it off if I never try. To be honest, I just want to be handsome like the young Orson Welles.

If you are wondering why I hate my beard all of the sudden it is because I "Trek'd" myself on the internet. Well, if you haven't noticed, I turned out black (which doesen't bother me because I'm all about equality) and my beard is a strange, shit-like mess. 

Editor's Note: I'm totally into this thing yelling at you every time this page is loaded. 

Farting Art

As I have opened nearly 90% of every post with this month: "Since the semester is wrapping up I have a lot of work to do!"

There I said it again. Sorry.

As the semester winds down I only have three big, big, big projects left. The Hives (which, are coming out awesome), the one I started today and a film which I have to write tonight and shoot this weekend.

What I started today is pretty fun. I decided to do my final for my research class about the one thing I have researched pretty thoroughly so half the work is done already. Dreams.

I have over an hour of those dream logs and I listened to them today and wrote down characters that stuck out to me. I'm going to draw them, frame them beautifully and then throw another element into the equation. You know, to take it to the next level. 

Here is the first one. A Cop who I encountered a few weeks ago and he was giving me shit. It was sort of a nightmare but then the wind blew and his hat flew off and he went after it. I ran home.

Also I printed the hives on some nice friggin' paper and framed em'. There are 15 but 12 in this photo. I absolutely love how they are coming out. This week I print that tattoos and then booyah I got me some nice art.

That's it, sugar.

Pirates

Pirates have been having such a good month. They were all over the news last week when they tried to fuck with a couple of Americans (I think they lost because it's the year 2009) and with this whole Pirate Bay verdict coming in, well, Pirates are really hot right now. I would link you to either one of those stories but it's 11:30 and I had a long day. If you don't know what they are I can, however, link you to this site.

Recently I was talking to a dear friend of mine who told me that he bought whatever software you need to use BitTorrent. I won't expose his identity because I know how some people feel about torrenting, P2P servers and file swapping in general. Me? I don't really care that much. Until I started thinking about it...

I was reading Gizmodo and read that the new Square-Enix film Final Fantasy VII Advent Children has been pirated at an incredibly fast rate. What do I think about this? Nothing. I stopped caring about Cloud and Red XIII when I hit puberty three weeks ago. 

Then I read that the new X-Men movie with Wolverine got put online before it hit theatres. This didn't really tickle me either. Even as a filmmaker who can't imagine how horrible that feels, I feel that somehow a film that has a scene where a man jumps off the hood of a car and stabs a helicopter pilot in the throat will still make a decent amount of money. 

I was doing even more Internet reading and I found out that the Playstaion Portable (a handheld I respect greatly though do not own), something I have been contemplating purchasing for a while, was almost completely abandoned by developers because it was so easy to copy UMD media. This started to sort of piss me off.

Then, dear starlets, then it happened. I had to bring something from itunes into Garageband for a piece that was due the next day. What happened? It said "NO WAY, PIRATE" and completely deaded me. I had to open it in Quicktime, then save it as an MOV which I then had to convert to an MP3 though a different app I downloaded online. I could have just burnt it to a CD and then re-import it but I had no CD's. This is when I flipped.

Fucking pirates are beginning to ruin it for all of us. I don't want DRM on all my itunes music. I don't want to pay more money to see Wolverine cut people up. I don't want to be inconvenienced every time I need to purchase or enjoy media because some smarter, more computer savvy people figured out how to do it for free. 

Damn you pirates. 

DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL (except the one earlier mentioned, he's cool)!

Editor's Note: I think this post is an example of how sometimes, as far as funny pictures churned out of photoshop are concerned: less is more.

Adventure across the street

Living on State street is pretty cool but being directly across from the Chicago Theatre is even cooler. It's always there and it has always taunted me with it's banner, announcing shows that I don't have the money or time to see. From Dennis Leary and the entire cast of "Rescue Me" to Ne-Yo, there have been many shows I have wanted to see but instead watched bitterly from across the street as audience members poured out, embraced by happiness and overwhelmed with such satisfaction that they decide to just stand on the street in a large group for a little while. 

Well, yesterday I was with Preston and decided that I should at least try to get tickets for the "This American Life Live!" show, which last time I checked, was all sold out. I went in (keep in mind, the show was in a few hours) and to my shock, a party of two had cancelled and I was able to score a pair of seats on the ground floor, 8 rows back from Ira Glass himself. 

It was a good show but got better when Joss Whedon came out and performed a musical number he had written as a commentary on a DVD about how much he hates commentary. It was amazing.

Prelude To A Sneeze

Here is yet another project I had due that I had to churn out during this amazingly busy, art filled few weeks.

This one turned out pretty decent and I received a very solid and flattering critique on it. 

Original idea was to film a sneeze at an amazingly high frame rate, slow it down a few hundred times and play it out over the course of five minutes. I decided to shoot a test at 24fps and found that the moments before the sneeze were much funnier and interesting than the sneeze in itself. 

Youtube messed with the aspect ratio and normally I would complain about this but I'm sure there's a way around it that I am just too lazy to figure out. Also, Youtube is free. One day, I will upload a beautiful HD file that will look as it does on my computer. One day.

Oh, one last thing. There was no intention on using this footage so I didn't use a mic or even peek at my levels. For full effect, speakers/headphones are suggested.

Achoo.

Victory!

I try not to make pointless blog posts like this one but I just can't help it. It's 3 A.M and I have finished my fucking essay. 

HELL YEAH!

Editor's Note:

So THAT'S why "twitter" exists!

You are witnessing the process of "deading"

Yes. Yes. I should be writing the essay. I'm literally just about to, I swear. First I had to do this sound piece. I couldn't just make it and not upload it to youtube, right? That'd be such a waste! So, I did the right thing and put the essay off a couple of minutes. 

Anyway, this piece is based on a short and sweet article I found published in the Times waaaaaay back in the day. It was about a boy who suffered from Urticaria so much so that you could write on his body with a blunt object. I went from there. It's pretty dark and fun and it's not writing an essay and that's awesome:

Now, I write my essay.

Wish my luck.

Lack of

This week has been light on the posts for the only really valid reason I can think of: there hasn't been anything happening that I feel is post worthy. Indeed, starlets, I tried a few times to crank out some bulldoodie but I decided in the end it was better to just not post at all than making a few mediocre ones.

The only thing I have to show is that today in a studio class I had I got to work on some of those hive drawings. They are pretty cool.

Now. I somehow let an 8-10 page paper slip through my fingers this week and it's due tomorrow. That and a sound piece about this article I found (also related to hives. I wasn't kidding when I said I have become obsessed...) so that means I must stop screwing around and start cracking. Wish me luck, lovelies.

A very good good friday.

Today is good Friday and I found my self in Pilsen with a few thousand Mexicans. We were all marching down the street with a few hundred Romans. With us was Jesus Christ himself, carrying a gigantic cross. Whenever he stopped to catch a breath, a few broom heads would nail him on the back with a gigantic whip. It was pretty surreal.

Here is Jesus passing a local McDonald's. I can only imagine everyone inside looking in awe, mouth open as McFlurries ooze onto their laps.

You know what's weird? Part of me wants to say "I thought I'd never see the day" but deep down inside, it seems pretty normal. 

There was some dude there who was trying to steal Jesus' thunder. He too was carrying a humongous, home made cross. What an attention-schlob!

After we made rounds past the local fast food joints I started to wonder "are these people really going to go all the way?" 

My question was answered when the march ended in the middle of a local baseball field. There was a small hill. A few minutes of awkwardness went by as the crowd sat knowing what was about to happen but didn't feel comfortable telling the savior.

I wish that I had a real camera or that my cellphone was also a Hasselblad because this picture really doesn't do the scene justice. One of the martyrs was covered in gang tattoos. Honestly. An image I will never, ever forget.

They day sort of ended on a bummer as Jesus was carried away in a makeshift coffin.

Also, the people I was with didn't want to go back to the Loop to get lunch. That means I had to eat Mexican food. You know what means?

It means after writing this post I'm going to go back to where I was before I started writing this post. The bathroom.

Wow. What a sham.

If you are reading this there is a 60% chance that to you, it's old news. Here's the thing: it's not to me, baby. Therefore I will write about it as if I just discovered it and there hasn't already been millions of blog posts about the subject.

Everyone knows "Sham-Wow" and as a made for TV/infomercial junkie, I have always been fascinated with the front man for the super absorbent rag. Whenever I see him, the same parts of my brain go off that go off when a deprived, drug addicted lunatic approaches me on Delancey street trying to scam me out of a couple of bucks so he can get his fix. Seriously folks, the guy has the swagger, talk and persuasion of a meth-head on his last hoorah.

That's why when I heard what happened to him (his names Vince Offer, by the way) I wasn't shocked at all. Just really excited. I was right about something.

Turns out Vince was staying in a nice hotel and picked himself up an expensive hooker. After offering her one thousand dollars for sex (paid for by clumsy, juice spilling mothers across the country) she lured him into his room and then bit his tongue off. 

That's right. She "bit and wouldn't let go" What's he do? He punches her. A lot. 

Obviously since privacy doesn't exist in this world anymore (and thank god for that!) his mugshot and crime scene photos have been posted all over the Internet. Here's one, stolen by yours truly:

There are many more here. I was going to post them but I feel it's in bad taste to publish photos of bloodied women (be them tongue gnawing hookers or not).

This just makes me wonder. What sort of country do we live in when our heroes wind up handcuffed to hospital beds for unforgivable crimes? Fact is, five years ago before my con-artist spidey sense was developed, I would have loved this guy. Just like I loved Billy Mays, Ronco (chicken rotisserie God) and Chef Tony. I mean, what's next people?

EDITOR'S NOTE:

If you don't know who that is you don't watch enough TV

New frontier

Remember that last post with the chia sink where I said I would never mention Chia again? I eat my words. For good reason, though.

A writer for a blog entirely dedicated to the bizarre and interesting world of the Chia plant read the post and liked it enough to feature it on her blog. You should check it out:

BOOYAH

Next stop, Gizmodo.

More about dreams

Lately a lot of my work has been working with those documentations I have been logging of my dreams. I do every night (though must admit the last few nights I have been slipping up) and there is so much information that I'm sort of at a standstill as to what to do with it. 

In the comments, Ludwig Persik threw up the idea of making a book. In this day and age with the Internet and resources from my school, I could easily make a nice, hardcover, fancy little thing of a book and it could be pretty cool. 

I don't really know what format to put it in though. That is what I have this coming week to think up. I do know, however, what the cover and format will be. I made it last night.

I can see it now. Black pages. White text. Centered writing...maybe packaged with a CD. Who the hell knows.

Awkward moment in facebook history

Buzzkill....

April fools!

It's pretty typical that website post a fake news story or blog post on April fools. I was thinking about going down that road but everything I could come up with seemed too mean spirited and cold. Things like "I think I'm dying" and "I'm dropping out of College" all seemed a tad melodramatic so instead I decide to simply celebrate the holiday and give you all a safehaven for the next 24 hours. 

If your getting pranked too hard, come here and refresh. 

Happy April Fools, fool.