I had to buy dog food today so I opted for a trip to the White Trash Wonderland that is WalMart. I have nothing against WalMart as a store, I don’t think it’s evil or anything. You have to figure if there was no Walmart all the idiots that work there would just be collecting unemployment. Truth be known, I love Wal Mart. I love it so much that every time I go in even if it’s just for a 1 item like a 40 lbs. bag of dog food, I still walk around the entire store simply for pleasure. Wal Mart is like a trip to the zoo except the animals aren’t in cages, they’re roaming around the walkways with you.
I have a pretty standard trail I follow upon entering the store. First, I’m always sure the grab a cart, regardless of whether I need it or not. I find carts, when properly implemented, are an awesome tool for pissing people off. I like to find a nice loud on that doesn’t exactly push in a straight direction. Once I have my cart I like to proceed directly to the tee shirt section of the men’s dept so I can catch up on the latest in white trash fashion. Today’s selection included a picture of a squirrel exclaiming ‘My Family is Nuts’, a Mountain Dew logo knock off that said ‘Mount & Do Me’ and of course a wide selection of tee-shirts with wolves howling and the moon, but that is a completely different story.
Sorry, I’m getting off track, the point of this story is that while pushing my cart towards the cash register I came across a huge jello mold of a women standing beside a corner display that consisted of empty twizzler boxes. She is irate and screaming into her cell phone (it’s a walmart tradition to talk into your cell phone as loudly as you possibly can so everyone around you can be fully immersed in your conversation). Anyway, this women is red-faced and screaming
“Dare out of um here too, this is the third walmart we been too and they sold out everywhere. I wanna get dat two dollar price!”
Now look, I love Twizzlers as much as the next guy, but at what point do you love Twizzlers so much that you willing to drive all over town to get them at $2? I mean Jesus Christ how much do Twizzlers regularly cost anyway? $2.50? Does this stupid fuck realize she burned more gas driving to three Walmarts than she would have saved just buying the damn things at the grocery store? Is that math so complicated to figure out? God poor people are stupid.
I shouldn’t let dumb things like this bother me but I don’t have any patience these days. It must be the 6am summer class thing. Well at least blogging about it killed some time. It’s almost liquor o’clock. Hmmmm, sweet sweet liquor.
Today I had to sit through a colossal piece of shit called Citizen Kane. Actually let me rephrase that, this morning I had to get up at 6am to go sit in an ice cold classroom, to watch a big fat piece of shit called Citizen Kane. This movie is supposedly one of the greatest films ever made and I can’t for the life of me imagine why. I can only venture to guess that all previous movies in the 1940’s had sucked such ass that when this semi-coherent turd was released that it some how seemed amazing. It’s an average girl in a bar full of fat chicks if you will, nothing special but in that environment she’s an all-star.
Basically Citizen Kane is about a rich douche who tries too hard to force people to like him and ends up dying old and alone before muttering the word ‘rosebud’. Obviously the mystery behind the word Rosebud is somehow worthy of plotting an entire two hour movie around. (note to Orson Welles- it’s not) So we, the audience, are forced to endure the life of Charles Kane as told through various flashbacks narrated by the people who knew him.
Perhaps the use of non-linear story telling is why this film was considered groundbreaking. Maybe we owe the use of flashbacks in the TV series LOST to Orson Welles, though I doubt it because those flashbacks are actually interesting and tell a good story. Through those flashbacks we get to see a character from multiple points of view and gain a perspective on why they make certain decisions. None of that is accomplished in Kane who is basically portrayed the same throughout the film. I never at any point identify with or feel sorry for him.
Finally after sitting through two hours of his dull rich guy life of running newspapers and buying statues we are treated to finding out that Rosebud was the name of the sleigh he had as a child before he was forced to start leading his tough life as a rich asshole. That has to be one of the worst payoffs I’ve ever come across in a movie in my life. So thank you for wasting two hours of my time. It’s bad enough the story paid more attention to Kane’s second wife’s obsession with Jigsaw puzzles than ever exploring the death of his first wife and son. But hey why bother with that? I mean the death of your child wouldn’t affect your psyche or explain anything about the things you do, just gloss over it and continue on with the story.
In the end you can learn one thing from this abomination of story telling: If my dying words are ‘Atari’ please note it was my favorite childhood toy and it if that is all I have to say at the end please just toss me and a hole and move on with your day.
Well I havent’ blogged in awhile, between grad school and working on the new house I just haven’t had much time. My sports blog never really got off and running I figured if I’m going to salvage one of them it might as well be this one since it has the most history + it came up during an interview that somebody did on me for one of my Grad classes last week. (as well and the now infamous random dildo incident). So just what the hell is going in on my life so far this year?
The New House It’s pretty hard to believe I’ve been in here for 2 months already it still doesn’t really feel much like home. I think moving in the same weekend my grandmother died made it feel awkward for awhile. I’ve tried to make it feel more home like by doing some painting and I’ve got a nice check from Barack to help me remodel my god awful 1970’s kitchen but I don’t think any of that will help. Bottom line is the suburbs fucking suck. It’s boring as shit out here, I’m in walking distance to nothing and even if I was the bars around here pretty much blow goats. Even if I drive down to Fells or where ever I have to have some self-control because I have to drive home afterwards. SELF CONTROL SUCKS, it’s highly overrated and probably meant for people with kids or goals or something. Not to say I don’t have goals there is always finishing Grad School
Grad School This is probably the least interesting semester I’ve had thus far. My writing class, while OK is not as good as last semesters. I think that is mainly because it revolves around interviewing people. Not really well suited for somebody like myself. Most people think that I’m anti-social which isn’t really true it’s just that I’ve come to accept that most people are about as interesting as a bag of turnips and have trained myself to not bother with them. It’s often perceived as being anti-social.
My other class is Typography which is pretty good, I’ve enjoyed all the projects thus far and gotten some nice portfolio pieces out of it. The current project is boring the shit out of me though mainly because its so similar to what I do at work 40 hours a week. My main issue with this class it that 90% of the people in it lack any talent what so ever. The critiques are painful, I swear to god one chick is doing her assignment is Fucking Microsoft Word, at least I hope she is or she really wasted money on buying InDesign. The remained of my class have become clear though, The Summer – a required class called Visual & Verbal Rhetoric, it’s at 8am on Monday AND Wednesday morning and I completely expect it so suck ass and it will make me late for work twice a week for 5-6 weeks this summer.
The Fall – I’m taking an advanced FLASH class with the same instructor I had last fall even though I didn’t think she was extremely knowledgeable on the subject. For my second class it’s between a video editing class (Final Cut Pro) or an Advanced CSS/XHTML class. I’m leaning towards the video class but it’s from 2pm-4:30pm on Mondays so it will depend on how flexible my employer is. I think they will be OK with it, they need some video editing and DVD/CD ROM authoring skills in house now that the former guy in charge of that left. NEXT Spring – I have to take the final Seminar/Portfolio class and then I’M DONE. Master Degree completed in May 2010. All I’ll have do after that is work off my debt to my company (1 year) and then I’m free sell to the house (at market value with a nice profit) and get the hell out here or at least move back downtown.
Sorry this blog was boring but so is my life at the moment I’ll try to come up with something hilarious really soon. Perhaps I’ll go through the box of childhood shit my mother gave me Friday and find some hilarity in there.
2008 was actually a very good year for me. I completed two of the goals I set out for myself; enrolling in a Graduate program at Univ. of Baltimore and buying a new home. Granted my new house wasn't exactly where I wanted it go be, but I could use a break from living downtown and poor Morgan needs a yard she just isn't happy in the city.
The Grad program is going far better than I expected. I completed 15 of the 36 credits required for a MA is Publications carrying a perfect 4.0 GPA into 2009. I gained several new software skills in CSS, XHTML, FLASH, and ActionScript 3.0. I'm already applying everything I learned at work, hell, it probably saved my bacon when they did the layoffs last month. (hee-hee 'bacon')
The most suprising development of the program has probably been that I've had 3 professors tell me I have a real talent for writing and urged me to focus more on it. The 3rd professor, being an well accomplished novelist, swayed me enough to change my Spring schedule and drop an ActionScript class for a journalism course. I also started a 2nd blog, that will probably end up killing this one.
My new blog is called 'Blogtimore Sports' and its going to be an attempt at regular professional writing in conjuction with my Grad classes. My goal is to update it twice a week and offer objective commentary (not constant smack talk about the skins and steelers, though maybe a little). The first entry looking and the issues with baseball economics is up. Please check it out, follow and LEAVE COMMENTS!
So I guess that just leaves me with setting some goals for myself is 2009. Nothing earth shattering comes to mind, obviously I want to keep the 4.0 going and as always I want to try to cut back on the drinking but we all know that one never happens. I'd like to travel more, I got to hit off about 6-7 cities in 2008 but there is no where I desperately want to go to right now (except the raven's super bowl in Tampa)
Just to make it interesting here are some random goals for 2009
1. Develop an Iphone App 2. Start a regular FLASH cartoon series 3. Run the Baltimore 1/2 marathon or at least a 5K at some point 4. Stop wasting to much time on Sports Message Boards, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter etc. 5. Buy a Nintendo Wii and spend an entire week drunk playing Mario Kart.
*I have a good feeling about that last one.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
I declare this 'The Week of Markus!'
Not to be confused with 'The Summer of George'
It's been a crazy week, some bad things happened, some great things happened, and some downright hilarious things happened.
Let's start with a Sunday night, when finally after 13 years, the god awful Washington Redskins finally had to come to Baltimore and take the brutal beating they so richly deserve. I have never seen a team lose a game before the 1st commercial break before but the first 4 and half minutes of that game may have been the greatest 4 and a half minutes of NFL football ever. It was absolutely worth freezing my ass off for and leads me to my first tidbit.
I SMACK TALKED AN EIGHT YEAR OLD SKINS FAN
Now granted this was not a sober decision. There was a skins fan about 4 rows in front of us with his wife and kid who was being really obnoxious before the game.* Now I personally hate it when opposing fans bring the little ones with them, they think it gives them a pass to act like a total asshole because most people won't fuck with you infront of your kid. Well unfortunately this guy didn't know that Markus, isn't most people.
It was early in the forth quarter when the guys kid started to whine about going home and than started crying over his dad's shoulder. I made a decision on the spot to go ahead and taunt the kid by rubbing my eyes and pretend crying, I than polished it off with the always classic 'raspberry'. Well the little shit starts freakin out and than he fuckin tells on me to his dad (nobody likes a tattle tale kid).
So the kid points me out and the dad starts yelling up at me so I casually flick him off and point the score board. He threatened to come up and kick my ass but seeing as how he was outnumbered about 100 to 1 I wasn't worried. He finally sat down at his wife's request when low and behold Derrick Mason scores a 30 yard TD to seal the blowout. I of course being a class act waited until thinsg quieted down and than yelled down "Is you kid gonna cry about that too?"
I admit at this point I probably should have gotten my ass kicked but security ended up 'helping' the guy find the way out. It was awesome.
1 CLASS DOWN
I had my Writing final Tuesday night which was basically just a wine and cheese party at the teachers house in Mt. Washington. The class went very well and the 4.0 is still alive going into the FLASH final Thursday night. Prof. Majida actually has me considering taking up some freelance writing opportunites and thinsk I really should send my Anti-Cell phone article pitch letter and article to Wired Magazine. Personally I'm more interested in sending in my 12 page book pitch idea. The book's preliminary title it "I Can't 'Wait' Anymore" and it basically a memoir of my 7 years of restaurant life. It was a lot of fun to write and I laugh everytime I read it but honestly I don't think I could secure all the releases necessary to release it. There are some people from those days I don't ever need to speak to again. But than again shouldn't the world get to hear some of my epic tales?
The time the Chi Chi's flooded with poo
The guy who died and table 108
The time Dan, McIntyre and I inadvertently got a girl to start doing coke
The legend of 'Stinky' Chairs.
Well at the very least I may take another writing elective before I graduate, especially with that professor.
LAYOFFS
Wednesday was the low point of the week. The education company I make widgets for, like every other company in the economy, had to make layoffs. Thankfully I was spared, but about 50-60 people were let go including a couple good friends. Overall though I think they did a good job handling it. Everyone got a good severance and they trimmed alot of upper level VP fat the company frankly didn't need. I hate to see anybody lose there job, especially right now and right before the holidays but I have to admit a few of the people let go were a constant roadblock to getting certain projects done and I think in the long run everybody will be much better off.
THE DILDO INCIDENT
So most people know that I am tiring of city life for several reasons, one of which is the constant trash everywhere. I've found just about everything in the gutter or up in a tree over the past three years; beer bottles, socks, a microwave, pants, chicken wings, hot pockets, tires EVERYTHING. Or so I thought....
I'm walking morgan the other night when we come across that I thought to be a large turd, either from a homeless guy or from the creepy fruit salesmen's horse. But something was amiss. This thing was too symetrical to be a turd and is seemed to have balls(?) and it was buzing and holy shit it was rolling right towards us.
Now if I've learned one thing in the past 3 years about Baltimore city street poo it's that it's almost alway stationary it doesn't roll towards you. I pulled morgan away for the mystery cylinder, fumbling to get out my IPHONE to take a picture but it was gone. However we did find this a few houses down.
I know what you;re thinking, what the hell is that, better give is closer look...
Still not sure, better read the label...
yup, it a Basix, 6" vibrating dong alright. Dear god this city is even more fucked up that I ever imagined.
*before the game aka the only time a skins fan is able talk trash. During the game and afterwards never seem to work out of them.
So it's that wonderful time of year again, no I'm not referring to the holidays, I'm referring to that time a year when I realize my vacation days are use'em or those'em and take a 'vacation' from home. It ususally falls around some turkey dinner and is followed by my company's 'We swear their not annual' layoffs.
I celebrated my 3 year anniversery at the office on Friday receiving the traditional 6 pack of beer and am bracing for the yearly tightening of the belts which basically results in our office getting a little thinner every Decemeber. Quite frankly I'm past the point of even worrying about it for several reasons. One, it's completely beyond my controll. Two, I've insured myself by having them pay for my Grad school. If they opt to let me go I get to walk with my Masters degree paid for by them. and finally... Three, given the choice between getting laid off or being the 1 graphic artist left there having to service EVERYBODY, I'll take the layoff.
Of course I say that now, but if I do end up getting 'my position discontinued' do expect a long rant back on this very blog.
I'm probably going to end up spending a good chunk of the time off finishing up my projects for my two classes this week anyway. I think I still have a solid shot at keeping the 4.0 going even though I'm not going to be a published writer as my Writing Professor would have prefferred.
The FLASH class actually came around a little bit, the teacher ended up being OK (though not on par with the other UB professors I've had), I don't think she knows much about Actionscript though so I am enrolling in an Actionscript class next semester along with the mandatroy Typography class.* I am also planning on taking the advanced FLASH class in Fall 2009.
NO HOLIDAY RANTING So anyone who reads this knows me and my opinion of a certain holiday, especially the god awful music associated with it. As it turns out this year my family has decided not to do gifts but to give money to charity instead, which is fine with me. I just have to find the address for the Human Fund - Money for People.
*Fucking Typography again? are fucking kidding me? Jesus god damn christ this the 3rd time I've had to take this BULLSHIT one form or another. Combined with the fact I've been a professional for 6 years now its clearly completely unnecessary. Even worse the class is on Thursday nights during LOST! Hear me now, if I end missing the season premiere of LOST to listen to some stuffy ass bandit explain the difference between a serif and sans serif font I'm going to fucking hurt somebody.
I have never been really ecstatic about elections before. In 1996 I voted for the incumbent Bill Clinton because I didn’t think getting hummers from porky interns was really that big of a deal (turns out I was right). In 2000 I was neck deep in college and really didn’t know much about Gore or Bush so I literally went to polls and decided I’d vote for who ever handed me the first campaign sticker or whatever (It was Bush). DOH!
After seeing how close that election was I decided, hell I better start paying attention. Than 9-11 happened and a war so I decided I REALLY better start paying attention to what is going on. When 2004 rolled around, despite my ‘paying attention’ I was still undecided. I didn’t really like John Kerry. I agreed with the war at that point but wasn’t too sure Bush knew what he was doing (right again!). So on Election Day 2004 I decided my vote on a tank of gas. I pulled in to a Shell station on my way to the polls and decided if the gas was more the $2 a gallon I’d vote for Kerry. I mean how could we possibly be in control of Iraq and be paying a whopping $2 a gallon for gas right? The gas rang up for $1.99 a gallon and I again made the mistake of voting for W. Bush. DOUBLE DOH!
Now I’ve spent 4 years watching my voting blunders slowly destroy our nation. Our economy is in the toilet, along with the housing market. Unemployment is at all time high, and we’re tossing billions if not trillions of dollars at a war they should have been over with years ago. All the while we can’t get all of our own people health care. Needless to say I could not wait to go cast my vote Tuesday morning for Barack Obama who I actually donated money to twice in the past year.
I arrived at the elementary school a block and a half from my house @ 8am to see there was already a line out the door and around the corner. I didn’t mind waiting though. Everyone was very friendly and in a good mood. While waiting in line I was handed a postcard from the campaigner that read:
“Gov. Martin O’Malley** and Mayor Sheila Dixon want you to vote for Barack Obama & Slots"
WOW, for the first time in 2 years I’m actually being swayed and reconsidering my vote. If MOM and Shady Sheila think it’s a good idea maybe I should reconsider. Even more disturbing what the fuck does Obama have to do with Maryland getting slots? Did the Obama campaign really think this postcard was a good idea? Or was this a genius idea of McCain?
Either way I tossed it aside and continued into the school. The line moved pretty smoothly but of course the women in front me was ½ retarded and at the wrong polling place and was demanding they drive her to the correct location. Did I say ½? I meant completely retarded. Finally after an hour and 20 minutes of waiting I cast my vote.
I voted for Obama, against early voting, for slots*, against every judge, and against every bond asking the city for money for some BS. I used my ‘I voted’ sticker to get FREE Starbucks, a doughnut, a chicken sandwich and a FREE BEER from Todd Conner’s on my way home. I sat at home with a pizza and watched the inevitable victory of Barack. I think this will be one of the most historic moments in the country’s history, right up there with the moon landing or sadly 9/11. I hope Barack gets it turned around, he has control of the House and the Senate but Bush is leaving him with one hell of a mess to clean up. I just hope nothing happens to him. There are a lot of whack jobs out there and a Obama assassination would be disastrous for the country. They already have caught a couple white supremiest plotting something stupid before the election. Hopefully I worrying about nothing. Besides we’re all forgetting the most important thing here – Hillary Clinton is not President of the United States.
*Slots = please spare me any liberal bullshit stating slots are just taking advantage of poor people. Last time I checked there was no plan to handcuff everyone making under $25K a year to a slot machine and give them their pay check in quarters. Poor people are stupid, and spend their money on stupid shit. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be poor.
I have no problem profiting off of them. It’s ironic so many people who were anti-slots when republican Bob was in office and now all for them when democrat MOM is in charge. But the best part is when the slots are finally up and running around 2011-2013 O’Malley will have been voted out of his ass. One can only hope for Bob.
**MOM = Martin O’Malley, it should be noted that on March 20th, 2003 on my 26th birthday me and my friends were pushed out of the fireplace room @ The Stil in Cockeysville because Mayor O’Malley was there and wanted to room to himself. Marty I swore on that day I would destroy you and your day is coming. Don’t think I’ve forgotten. P.S. your band sucks!
I'm a professional graphic artist and part time grad student and Universtiy of Baltimore majoring in Publications Design. I am keeping this Blog as part of the writing portion of my degree. Please feel free to share it with others and leave comments.
(illustration credit here)
