oh crap

I was playing around with a template and accidently chose a new one (wanted to preview, didn't realize what I was doing) and consequently lost all my old links. I had them saved on my computer (I try to back up everything - I lost almost everything on my old computer and now back up like a mad man), but my html isn't strong enough to figure out how to put it back in. So please bear with me (the three people out there who actually bother to read this blog) while I figure out how to fix it.

How sad is it that this is what I'm doing with my Saturday night?

blogs to read

I started blogging a few years ago and most of the other blogs I read back then are gone now and I've culled them from my links.

So, anyone have some suggestions of blogs you like that you think I should also read?

On the state of my thoughts

There was a job I wanted. I didn't get it. It kinda sucks. This is a pretty boring entry, but I still don't know what I really want this blog to be about. It may just turn back into what it was before, but I almost feel like that would be counter productive. Either way, I'm thinking about turning comments off, because as it stands I only have one reader left after my haitus (Hi Rawbean).

So if I'm doing this for me (and why would I be doing this for me on the internet? if it's just for me shouldn't it be completely private?) why do I need comments in the first place?

Decent questions, perhaps I'll come up with some answers.

Probably not though.

giving this a shot

I've been absent. I realized the that I didn't have much to say, and I don't know if I really want to continue blogging at all, though I figure I'll give this a bit of a go; but I think changes are in store.

I just don't know what they are yet.

Ami's reasons why not

To be honest I've kinda lost interest in blogging. Here, in no particular order, is a list as to why my interest has dropped.

1) Summer Movies. Superman, Pirates of the Caribbean, A Scanner Darkly, The Prairie home Companion. There is just so much time that exists in the day. And I have a horrid addiction to the cinema.

2) A mildly active social life. When I started blogging I had none, and now, I do. I'm not saying that one needn't have a life to be a blogger, far from it. Just that I'm a lazy, lazy man and if I go out, I am too lazy to blog afterwards.

3) Work. The bit at Tribeca is good (in fact that's where I'm blogging from right now), and not at all busy (thus the blogging right now part). It's Frappacino season at Starbucks. Being sticky and reeking of coffee is not so conducive to blogging.

4) So I think this is the real reason. I kinda, sorta, have a girlfriend now. And by "kinda, sorta" I mean I do have a girlfriend right now. I just feel weird using the word girlfriend. Especially since the girl in question is eight (seven and a half to be more accurate) years younger than me. And especially since she is going off to college come the end of August. A college, which - though in NY State - is far away enough that our relationship now has a potential expiration date when she leaves. Also because no one knows we are dating (well, three people do, but they don't count, no one else knows) and we are keeping it quiet (her decision, not mine - though admittedly it's one I very much agree with presently).

And that is really the problem. I'm trying to spend as much time with her as possible before she leaves. Which leads me to my next problem.

Last we spoke she was not in the best of moods. I tried to coax the reason out, but she remained silent. After a movie she confessed that she realized that though she didn't want to become too attached to me (for the reasons stipulated above, i.e college) she realized she probably won't be able to help it (yay me and my ladykiller like smooth moves) which will make leaving even harder.

I tried to play it off as cool as I could, talking about how more worrying = less fun right now. Something along the lines of we'll see what happens when it happens. Trying to keep everything relaxed and such.

There is, however, that very selfish part of me that wants her feeling attached to me, that wants it to be hard for her to leave. That desires that sort of attention. Mostly because it's gonna freaking kill me when she leaves. Hell, I wind up missing her on the few days we spend apart. I don't even want to think about when it's much more permanent.

Though I've really only had one serious relationship in my life, I'd like to think I have had my fair share of relationships in general. In the past, with the girls I've dated, I always felt like I was playing a role. Like if I dated her (all the various hers I've dated) long enough I would feel the way one is supposed to feel towards someone you're dating. Even the serious relationship I jumped into too serious too quick and said things I realized later I didn't really mean.

This is the first time I've actually been as happy as I thought I was supposed to be in my previous relationships. It's an odd sensation, and not one that I want to give up anytime soon. I'm not going to get all mushy, or use any grandiose terms, just suffice to say that I like J_ (the girlfriend) a lot, more than I think I have anyone before.

It's just our timing that sucks.



P.S. yeah, so I'm sick of these boring, serious posts. The next one (hopefully the next few) will be funny and interesting - or if nothing else at least funny. I'm getting sick of my dopey angsty mopey complaining crap. It's totally time to stop being that.

A symphony of sweets

I'm going to try something I never have before. As a writing excersize I'm going to attempt to write a novel. But more than that, I'm going to attempt to write most of it on my other blog, As of yet untitled. Basically I'll be using that blog as a rough draft. The first thoughts and first drafts for chapters will be posted with no particular deadline in mind. I'm doing it as such half because its a convinient place to save my work, and to add to it from where ever I happen to be (and from what ever computer I happen to be on). I have a few ideas as to what is going to happen, but basically I'm going to be making it up as I go. I am going to try and add a chapter once a week. I'm not going to devote the blog to the novel as I plan on occasionally dropping in a self contained short story, but I am trying to figure out how to create a subsection devoted solely to the novel.

I just posted Prelude part one for said novel, which from now on will be called A Symphony of Sweets. You can check it out HERE

As always comments and thoughts on the fiction is always welcomed.

Prelude Part one
Prelude Part two
Prelude Part three

Damn dirty computer

So there is a bunch of blogs I read on a daily basis. Most of them you can find in the link section. There are a few that I read that aren't linked whom I found through Cute Little Box's Blog (RIP). I have them bookmarked in my computer for easy access. Unfortunately, my computer is not connected to the internet after the move and I've been using my mother's laptop. As such I don't remember the addresses off the top of my head and I haven't been able to read them. To the writers of said blogs (hopefully you know who you are), I will find you again, and I will read what I've missed because I can honestly say I've missed it. It's odd the type of attachments that grow, and how I do want to know what you'll come out with next.

Cat and Girl (and me)

As with most of my writing I've read over older entries of this blog and have found them to be lacking. They don't feel complete, missing a sense of a larger image in which they fit. As I read two ideas slowly crept into my head. The first: "Man I want a falafel." Followed almost immediately by: "Gasp! The imitative fallacy."

The first is pretty self explanatory, Falafel=Goodness. The second I'll take a moment to explain. For the unaware, the imitative fallacy is a trap many young (and even older) fiction writers fall into. The presentation of the plot imitates the themes and story, completely unintentionally. For instance, if you write a story about a race, where everything is speeding by, you might find that each paragraph is short, the sentences choppy, and the characters jump from one idea to the next very quickly, and none of it was planned when you started writing. The imitative fallacy is especially problematic if said style is bothersome to the reader (as stories that fall into the imitative fallacy often are).

Now how does this apply to my blog? I'm very glad you asked. I am unemployed drifting around aimlessly in a small suburban town. I have very little contact with my friends outside the phone and e-mail. No face time. I don't do much, as I said, I'm just sort of drifting trying to find a job (I had a job, I mean a good job, a job I'd like, not just a job but a Career). I'm 25 and I think it's time I started growing up. I don't want to get all stuffy in a suit and pants (pantsless employment=fun job or porn star, and I don't have the...ehem, body to be a porn star - nor do I think being a porn star would be a fun job, but that’s niether here nor there and this has become far too long of a parenthetical break) and just worry about money, and marriage, and children and all that other crap adults are supposed to worry about. But I also don't think I should still be bumming around working in a simple retail or coffee shop type job, not three years out of college with a nice (and expensive) degree.

I’ve looked back on my blog and found that the posts mimic my life. Drifting, aimless, self-contained, and searching for meaning. And really, that's just not good enough.

I just read the newest installment of my favorite web comic Cat and Girl and there was a line that really struck me. To quote, "If television's a babysitter, the internet is a drunken librarian who won't shut-up." I realized I didn't want to just be another voice of an endless "drunken" cacophony. So I'm taking some time off from this blog. I don't want to be profound (who really can be profound all the time, and those that are, man they're annoying), I just want to come up with a greater context.

I am still going to read all the blogs I read, because I like those blogs (noodles is posting again; I've said it before but I really, really dig her prose, both smart and funny - it doesn't get much better than that), but I'm refraining from posting until I find my context.

Or get really really bored, whichever comes first.

uh... carry on then...

Procrastination

I plan on writing one of those really good, funny, soul searching posts that has some sort of actual context to the world around us. I plan on it, but instead I mess around on the computer.

Anyway, favorite blog at the moment (as it changes often as more posts are posted on all the blogs I check): High-Centered & colourphobic Check it out if you dare.

Hey! Where's the beef?

As an homage to Spider Jerusalem and from a fear that I might be out of touch, for the past two days I've been sitting at my computer clicking the little next blog in the upper right hand of your screen. Trolling the blogosphere, as I've heard it been called, hoping to find something of interest on which I could report. As the time passed, and as I read the various entries of those blogs written in english, I began to fear I'd have nothing of interest to say, thus not only wasting my time, but the time of the few people who read my blog. In desperation I kept going and going, trolling from blog to blog praying that an epiphany of some sort would strike leading me to an amazingly original observation of not only Blogspot, but human nature as well.

Page after page scrolled down before me, my eyes quickly darting back and forth searching for the answer. And the more I searched the more I was sure an epiphany would come. It was a drug unlike one I've ever expereinced, all the addiction without any pleasant side-affects (not being bulimic, my nausea clearly doesn't count).

In this deluded state I kept moving on from blog to blog, even more convinced that the key to understanding not just humanity but the entire universe was hidden, and each blog was akin to a puzzle piece. All I would have to do is read them in the correct order and I would be like that of a GOD.

Needless to say, it didn't happen. I am not a god (not even in lower case), though some people might tremble before me - that has less to do with any god like powers and more to the point that I should change my deoderant more often. I was bestowed no epiphany, in fact, I can safely say I didn't learn anything at all. After a while all blogs started blending into one big blog which said this:

I HATE MY MOTHER BECAUSE LAST NIGHT AT SCHOOL I FELT SO SAD BECAUSE LIBERALS ARE RACIST AND CONSERVATIVES LOVE GOD. GOD ON THE OTHER HAND LOVES CHRISTIANS AND I SPENT PASSOVER DINNER AT A FRIENDS HOUSE, BUT ONLY BECAUSE BILLY DOESN'T LIKE ME LIKE I LIKE HIM. TONY BLAIR IS A SHOE IN FOR THE ELECTION AND THOUGH HE BENT OVER FOR GEORGE BUSH (WHO IS THE BEST AND WORST PRESIDENT EVER!) HE'S BETTER THAN THE OTHER GUYS, EXCEPT FOR THE OTHER GUY WHO IS BETTER THAN HIM. LIBERALS HATE AMERICA, CONSERVATIVES ARE DESTROYING AMERICAN. I LOVE AMERICAN IDOL. THE NEXT STAR WARS FILM IS GOING TO BE AMAZING; AMAZINGLY BAD. GEORGE LUCAS IS GOD, WHO HATES ABORTIONS. SCHOOL SUCKS. I HAD EGGS FOR BREAKFAST THIS MORNINGit's amazing how many people eat eggs for breakfast on a regular basis and then feel the world should know about it.BUY ALUMINUM SIDING, LOTS OF TECHNOBABBLE, MAC, IBM, NONE OF THE ABOVE, SOFTWARE I'VE NEVER HEARD OF AND A TREMENDOUS AMOUNT OF ADVERTISEMENTS FOR EVERYTHING FROM HEALTH INSURANCE TO GAMBLING ON THE KENTUCKY DERBY(surprsingly not that different really)

And so forth.

Which isn't to say I didn't come across any Blogs that I liked. I did come across some fun blogs. The good ones in my opinion were the ones not specifically devoted to the news or any political point of view, the ones who used full sentences and full words, the ones who got wrote out their ideas (be it about the going on's of the world or just their personal life) in a well articulated clever fashion. But those were the ones harder to find.

I should probably give links to the ones I felt are worthy of mention, only I'm beat and just like most of my assignments back when I was in school; I didn't take proper notes.

Three that jumped out at me as being different (blogs I visit regularly don't count as those are the ones that jumped out at me in the past) are as follows: Public Transportation, Query letters, and finally, for reasons I still don't understand the first entry of this blog Polemic really got to me (perhaps because it has a smart minimalistic approach I so sorely lack).

I was hoping that, like everything else one expects from the internet, finding the good would be fast and easy. Unfortunately for my lazy ass the world of the blogs is just like any other medium. Most of what's out there is blends together into one long desert of bland (or perhaps a better term would be just a bland dessert, empty calories and all). And just like every other medium you have to take the time to discern the good from the bad. I guess the real lesson learned, and definatly something I can take comfort in is this: access to technology doesn't make us smarter, better writers, more interesting, or more worthy of being read; all those aspects must comes ourselves, not our computers. Thus books are not dead, newspapers won't fade away, the internet isn't taking over as the ultimate form of communication. Just because it's more high tech doesn't mean it's any better than anything else.

Leaving me with the final conclusion that I'm not as out of touch as I thought I was.

Uh... carry on then

Just one reason Warren Ellis is smarter than me

In honor of Spider Jerusalem I have decided to spend some time flickering through the blogs on Blogspot to see what is out there and report on it. Not my finest idea (especially as it is just a rip off of an issue of Transmetropolitan) but it keeps me away from writing cover letters, which I detest ever so much.

I shall return with more info upon completion of this assignment. Prepared to be dazzled or, if nothing else, mildly amused verging on bored.

Uh... Carry on then

Porn

I don't really have much to say about pornography. It was suggested to me by a freind that if I used the word porn in the blog I might get more (or any) accidental readers. Those lonely men and women (who am I kidding, like some man looking for porn would stop and read this) late at night (or whenever the time for porn is at it's peak) are searching the intenet will stumble along and read this.

So, just to hedge my bets, porn porn porn porn.

I think that's enough and I don't think we should talk about this again.

And if you are looking for porn I apologize and, well,

uh.. carry on then...
hey, the catchphrase actually works in this one!

Insignifigant me

Not that I want, I don't think I do, but if I did: How do I get people to read my blog? Probably have to tell people about it and I haven't been able to bring myself to do that yet. Not even when people ask me if i have one (and some people actaually have). I lie and say I don't. Maybe I'm embarressed. Maybe I should start telling people, or commenting on other people's blogs, get active in the "community", and what not. notice how I used the british punciation keeping the comma after the quotation marks. It looked wierd at first to me but the more I think about it, the more sense it makes.

carry on then.
why do I insist on a closing catchphrase. I ought to rethink that.

Cornucopia of ideas (or lack there of)

So I'm trying to add a link from my site to an exhibit on Kevin Bank's Website. Kevin, being the man who so graciously has decided to work with me on a comic book. It's a great exhibit about what various people have done during their various periods of unemployment. I don't really understand how all this works yet so if the link doesn't appear, of if it doesn't work for whatever reason, it is entirely my fault. Here it is, I hope it works. What do you do?

I was talking to my friend Jason Chernock this evening and he asked why I didn't have a blog. I have an abundance of free time and all I ever seem to do is write, the connection seemed obvious to him. He went on to elaborate that everyone and their second cousin has a blog. I told him that I did in fact start a blog but was upon late feeling uninspired to work on it. One reason is most people are very boring and stupid. We might think we re interesting so we post, because the world should know what we think. Unfortunately what we think is most likely wrong and to a certain extent egocentric. (yet I do this anyway, but to follow in the lead of our current commander in chief, Hypocrisy be damned)

And though I've gone over this in the last few blogs, this is about what's on my mind, and apparently not much has happened in that area for a while.

I was thinking to model this after Peter David's blog site (see the link in my small but ever growing, if I get around to it, link section on the bottom right). He talks about what ever happens to be on his mind, often about his writing (he writes excellent novels and brilliant comic books professionally), sometimes about his life and family, and occasionally about his politics (most of which I agree). I don't think I have much to add in regards to a political debate, I believe what I believe, but most others articulate said belief's better than I do. So politics is out. Talking about myself too much is far to egocentric, and I don't think I'd want to read these posts if I wasn't me (though there will be posts about me, I just can't help it). Note to self: try to lay off other bloggers, they're probably good people and you're just getting mean about it now.

So that leaves my writing. I think, if I keep this blog, I shall dedicate it to my creative endeavors, and let the nonexistent readers (save you Jason) read my work.

But that's only my idea right now, can't say it'll be the same as day breaks upon the morrow.

Hopefully my next post will be funnier, because if you can't be smart at least be funny.

Uhh... Carry on then

First thoughts

I don't think I've ever been in love.

I'm just trying to get a handle on what to post and what not to post. I've been doing a little (read: extremely little) research by reading other blogs. I have come to understand that I might not be self-absorbed enough to update the world as to my daily life (complaints, achievements, ect.), nor am I updated or knowledgeable enough about worldly events to post "news."

Do I think anyone in their right mind is ever going to read this? Probably not, so for whom do I write? (notice the grammar, I have a B.F.A in writing, but it really hasn't gotten me anywhere, rather I haven't gotten me anywhere)

I'm flat broke and have to put in a deferment for my student loans, something I should have done a while ago but, for reasons unbeknownst even to myself, I have not. So I'm going to the post office today. right after I fill it out.

It's snowing. I have no car. I have a bike. I hate biking in the snow. It's my own fault. I need a new helmet, one that will keep my ears warm in the snow. My ears get cold very easily.

My uncle had a stroke on saturday.

I am not a coin operated boy, though I have given it thought.

Euripedes, you buy-a-dese.

How do I know if I've ever been in love. I've seen to many movies, I think I might be confused between real romantic love and hollywood romance.

Food for thought, though my brain couldn't take another bite.

I've heard of some people who are so open minded their brain has fallen out.

I think I have an artist to draw a comic for me.

Uhh.. Carry on then,

the end of what was

Never having written a blog or any such sort I am, one can say, at a loss. Needless to say this is just the first.

uhh.. carry on then.