Gulag Lite

Ramblin', truckin', stuntin', stayin' paid. My future plans are none too detailed, got a job learning the biz behind shop drawings for cnc aided custom carpentry for the well-to-do. Kitchens, Bathrooms, Master Closets, Entertainment centers, Living Rooms, Dens, all covered in paneling, crown mouldings, case mouldings, base mouldings, capitals, archways, constructed over european hinges, jambs, studs, upper stretchers, rollouts, overlay construction, face frame constructions, adjustable shelving, and the like. Cousin's furniture, John claims that they have the reputation of drawing the nicest, moste legible shop drawings, making work easier for the installers, electricians, and other contractors on the job, since the drawings are comprehensive to 1/32 of an inch, taking details into account that the architect glosses over. My boss more or less challenged me to pick up the basics as fast as i could so that I can start learning to use the 5-axis mill to produce intricate pieces of furniture. It's really an amazing opportunity, i'm the only limit to the strength of my position, it's just unfortunate that it forces me to stay at home.

89th post

Don't get me wrong, this video is done very well, technically it's crafted with obvious care and skill. However, what was really the point? The video was described on The Awesomer as:

Imagine, if you will, that Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner were a couple of human beings instead of cartoon characters. Thanks to this short, you don’t need to imagine. That’s all Folks!

It sounded like a cool idea; Interpret the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote as two humans similarly occupying that vast expanse of whatever desert road located in the vacuum of the southwest United States. However, what we are treated to is an replica of a Chuck Jones bit, recreating panels with actual landscape and live actors. The special effects were very polished and worked well. But I was expecting a looser interpretation, like one guy really trying to off some other dude in the middle of the desert, with just lots of schemes that mirror in reality the intensity and psychosis of that fucking coyote and that oblivious shit-eating grin of that big ass bird. He tries and he tries and he tries with so many plans, where he gets the money to order shipments of rocket boots is beyond me, I'd probably use that money to hire someone else to end that purple bitch. Maybe he owes the mob alot of money, or maybe he's just a hit man with an endless supply of cash and alot of free time. The Road Runner could be a delivery boy or some shit, he's just an ordinary fuckin' person.

Like a waterfall in slow motion

my favorite video game tropes, in no particular order:

-double jumps
-health bars
-saving
-achievements
-bosses
-mini-bosses
-level ups

also, in what will surely be the most underrated video game design innovation of the year: Fallout 3 New Vegas has done away [mostly] with the tired ol' 'kill 5 of this, collect 10 of those' quests and instead just made a system of achievements that come with killing x amount of radscorpions or collecting x amount of nuclear desert fauna. It still awards you with the kind of meager satisfaction that video games are capable of, but without some helpless npc telling you that the overwhelming population of generic creature needs to be controlled. It's also an awesome game, despite that the insane amount of graphical glitching makes it seem like it was rushed out of development a bit too early, although there are enough talented fans of the series that have already mod-ed the shit out of it. You can correct and even further beautify the landscape with free fan-generated modifications[as long as you're playing on the pc].

Never met a hospital that couldn't be burned to the ground

Today I began and concluded my employment at Meat Farms!

Bill: "Madison, that's off of Nicolls?"

Me: "It's off of Jefferson, but right around there."

B: "I only ask because I grew up in Deer Park, off of Grand."

M: "Cool."

I started the day with the intention of speaking to Bill [Deli Manager] about the possibility of having hours that end around 2 so that I could drive to my second (potential) job at a nearby middle school. However, the opportunity didn't present itself at first, so I decided to save that for later.

After being outfitted in a one-size-fits-all white jacket/smock thing and a black Boars Head hat, I was sent directly into training under Frank, a goatee-ed but otherwise extremely friendly and well mannered 21 year old from Commack/Northport. He debriefed me on the wide selection of hams, turkeys, chickens, bolognies, capricolas, cheeses, cole slaws, mayo-based salads (including, but not limited to shrimp, potato,macaroni, sea food, tuna, chicken) and their respective codes, which need to be punched into the scale after weighing in order to extract the price tag.

After an hour and a half, I went on my first (and last) 15 minute break. Frank comes along, as he is going on his lunch break (I assume this was timed by Bill). We go to the next door pizzeria, where I discover Frank also works at night. As he goes behind the counter to get a drink, and ring me up for a blue powerade, we talk about him. He's aiming to become a cop, two younger siblings, one of which he describes as handicapped, guilt him into staying at home and attending suffolk, although he would have rather attended Buffalo or Penn.

After heading back to work, I discover that most of the day is spent in anticipation of an irate customer, which the appropriate deli worker can then tear into. I learn that nearly everyone there has worked there for a long time, Frank for 3 years, some others for 10 or more, and they don't stay because they like it, but because its not worth quitting. Being fired, on the other hand, is not a punishment that anyone seems too worried about.

From the corner of my ear: "you must be the dumbest person that works here." I turn to see an old, 70 something, guy scolding a bewildered co-worker, Mike. "I'm probably the best worker back here right now." says Mike. Frank walks past the situation and laughs loud enough to let Mike know that 1.He isn't and 2.he should make the most of this opportunity. Instead, Mike walks away and gets Bill to handle it, mentioning (in a voice loud enough to be heard by the old guy) "do me a favor, Bill and tell this guy to go fuck himself." Bill defuses the situation in a slow patient voice, taking neither the customer nor Mike's side. I discover later that the old guy had not only misunderstood the nature of the on-sale ham he was pointing at, which only comes in chunky form, although he wanted it sliced, but also asked mike "How much do you get for a pound of Ham?" to which Mike replied "a pound."

long story short, as soon as I was slicing up meats and cheeses by myself, I'm told by Bill to take a lunch break. I take this time to mention my schedule preferences, that if possible, I'd like a schedule that allows me to get to my other job by 2:45. He says that it wouldn't be worth it to train me the rest of the day if I wasn't able to work the 10-whatever time schedule that he had planned for me. I thought it over a burrito loco from next door. Doing some quick math, i figure that if I could make $300 a week in an after school program (2:45-5:15 m-f $15/hr, 20hrs/week with extra schedule stuff) then why would I take a job that requires me to smell like cole slaw for 7 hours a day (Frank mentioned that with his two combined jobs, 40 hours a week, he makes 500 dollars). So I tell Bill that I'd rather not waste his time, thanked him for his generosity, and wrote this post.

I'd buy that for a dollar.

been very negligent recently. bad, very bad. should update more. lots of time, spent unwisely, requires fixing.

I need to leave home, things suck here. Not that I expect life to rule if I move somewhere else, but I think transporting my stuff to a far-away place would help me sort through and organize my shit, some clarity might present itself. Not that I mind playing mario golf/kart with my friends every day(they should mix the two, maybe you race between holes.), but I'm just exhausted from wishing I didn't live at home.

Got drunk last night with derek, talked alot about Nietzche and camus and kafka. this means that derek talked about them, while I listened and pretended to be well read and stuff. My head still hurts, my mom won't stop feeding this stray cat, so naturally it now lives on our porch, I named it Leia. Yesterday I applied for a job at Meat Farms, at the deli, my mom jokingly mentioned that they had an opening, then I jokingly drove there and jokingly applied, jokingly spoke to the manager about my incredibly flexible shcedule and now i'm jokingly waiting for a phone call later this week.

for some reason, this post turned into a whiny diary entry, good thing noone reads this shit.

bioplastic

Makes you wanna sing into your ears through your computer.

So A while ago, my good friend and handsome gentleman, Alexander Rowan Slotnick, Lived with me on Madison Avenue for a week of his stay in the New York state of mind.

In that time, much was accomplished. We managed to nearly defeat Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. We even stretched our fondness for creation by producing 'Tater plastic; that's potato plastic or bio-plastic for the lay man.

It was actually pretty simple, you mix a little bit of vinegar, water, and glycerine into some potato-starch, add food coloring, simmer, mix, pour, bake, cool, and then you've got yerself some plastic, dood.

Phaedra

I've been catching up on the first 3 seasons of Burning Bad recently, and its awesome. All of the New Mexico scenery puts me in the mood for music of a more arid consistency.

I just saw Predators, it was pretty kick ass. They had a samurai showdown between a yakuza assassin and a predator, which rocked my socks. Robert Rodriguez knows how to layer his campiness very effectively, the death-row inmate guy only fights with a shiv for the entirety of the movie, the Sierra Leone guy gets killed by spears... I was surprised that they didn't re-use the 'ugly mother fucker' line from the original, Adrian Brody, whilst be-mudded, used the 'kill me, kill me now' line, and I think one predator even tried to pantomime 'get to the choppa!'

There were a few inconsistencies that I'd like to address however. the party of protagonists is pursued by a pack of, what I will call, 'predator-wolves', which are under the control of the Predator hunting party. Then the group of protagonists discover cages which had been dropped on the planet, similar to themselves, what was in the cages remains a mystery. The whole movie, I was waiting to see what were in all of these giant fucking cages. At one point, Topher Grace is chased by what the viewer would think is a predator, it gets killed, and turns out to be some other super-humanoid creature, its unclear if it is sentient or relative to the Predator species. I'm assuming that the creature mentioned was what was being dropped in the cages, but its never mentioned again, and those creatures don't return, which was just anticlimatic and a silly omission in my opinion. Also, Laurence Fishburn was killed like a little bitch, I expected him to do some crazy shit. (spoiler alert)

Nork is Whole Screen Big

So, I have a habit of scouring the interwebs for obscure video game art, concept art when possible. I suppose that wouldn't be surprising to anyone who knows me, considering I don't have a life. Anyway, recently a friend of mine has been watching Dragon Ball Z, for the first time. Seriously, he's never watched it before, and I've been watching it with him when I'm over his place. I'll write more on that later. So I was looking for art for an old Squaresoft game by the name of Tobal. I only remember Tobal from video game magazines circa 1995 and from occupying the shelf at Video City (a momn'pop video store that went under around 10 years ago in the town over from me. They used to give free popcorn with video rentals.)

So Akira Toriyama did the character designs for Dragon Ball Z, he also did the designs for a surprisingly large number of video games, Tobal being among them.

While looking for this art, which i was highly unsuccessful at, I stumbled upon a website, which appears to have been made circa 1997, by Del the funky homosapien, where he reviews Tobal no.2, Battle Arena Toshinden 3, and Sega Virtua Fighters Megamix. You read that correctly, Del made audio reviews (which require real media player to listen to) of obscure japanese fighting games for the original playstation and sega saturn.

This makes me love Del so much more than I already did.

Bimbo a Bourdaeux

Twisted Metal is the prototypical vehicle combat video game that has its roots planted firmly in the post classical era of console gaming. The first one came out in '95, making it one of the newly born playstation's first games. The gameplay was exactly what was expected to be delivered on this new 32 bit generation; shit blowing up, fairly large 3d arenas, good sound quality, and multiplayer gameplay. But it delivered more than that, it had macabre, it had the personality of a shitty grindhouse horror film, but it was creepy and funny enough to keep one involved in the rather large and colorful cast of characters that the player would navigate through the destruction to reach their prize by winning the tournament (and it was necessary for there to be a tournament, fighting games don't make sense otherwise, how do you justify all of these crazy motherfuckers coming out of the woodwork to fight eachother in some kind of organized fashion?)

the live action cutscenes remind me of the intro to the original resident evil. (apparently this site makes video games into movies, more investigation needed.)

anyway, they're making a new one for ps3. my only problem with it is that the music sucks a big fat hard one, and that sweet tooth hasn't been converted completely into a juggalo.

vigilante 8 was probably my favorite twisted metal knock-off, it took a more 70's comical take on twisted metal's dark humor, it even had a character that was supposed to mimic Barry Gibb.

cherry wine

i'm just gonna dump some stuff, here.

I'm gonna post more stuff soon.

got lots of plans.

big plans.

grande.

did I mention my heterosexual love for Matt Berry?

Haunting Moos

Supertangas.com isn't pornography, perse, it's not exactly what i would call 'tasteful' or 'savory' in nature, but it's definitely tangas, I love tangas, and these are some super tangas. Now, I must apologize to my singular female reader for the coarseness of this websites subject, but it is difficult to not appreciate it, I appreciated twice yesterday. Pornography, as it makes itself present on the internet, is a profession where dedicated actors perform according to the dictation of a director, producer, or whatever you'd like to call the best job in the world. Supertangas are just people, like you and me, who realize they've been given a generous gift and wish to share that with those of us with refined enough faculties to appreciate it.

but what do I know, I'm just drinking tea and eating Lemon Heads. Remember cherry clan? its the racist cherry version of lemon heads, I used to buy them from the ice cream man along with those paper shits that pop on the ground when you throw them.

Jouster 2

He's eaten bars, wall to wall

Nas is better than R. Kelly, even at cliffhangers. Whatever, I shouldn't get wrapped up in trivial shit like that, rapture's gonna be here any second anyway.

Bamboo-toast

the Rules:

#8. You don't piss on hospitality

#27. If it exists, there is pornography involving it.

#45. The Guile Theme Song Goes with everything.

on the 16-bit video gaming front:

-Barkley: Shut up and jam

-Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World, the game. I've been waiting for a new rendition of River City Ransom since 1987 or whenever that shit came out.

black on track

I just have to mention how much I loved Xavier Renegade Angel, its such a classic character (that of the hilariously inept mystic who over complicates the already strange situations, eventually bringing complete destruction, sometimes complete transendancy) in a bizarre, nearly psychadelic western style (ala El Topo). The 'message' of each episode, besides for absurd humor, are meditations on the anxieties and ridiculous internal psychological quandries of the modern ADHD mind. It's also awesome after some serious baking.

Also, Awesome Return to Soul in pop music:

Aloe Blacc - I need a Dollar

this song could be the theme song to the film Killer of Sheep (amazing btw)

Janelle Monae & Big Boi - Tight Rope

laser swords

this man's criticism of star wars, episodes I & II, is outstanding. It's commentary relies solely on how easy it is to find flaws with those movies, and investigating just how comically obvious they are.

his avatar one is really funny too.

speaking of which, what has the popularity of putting every movie in IMAX 3D done to our cameras?

Something Awful

There's a thin boundary between what is awful (appears to have been made without the creator having even a weak aptitude at their craft or sanity) and what's genius humor. But sometimes, the Awful is so fertile with gut shattering laughter, that it takes on a new genre of film making, what some would call "acts of staggering genius". Instantly rewatchable, scraping the boundaries of ineptitude for a view into what can only be an alternate reality. exquisite.

Awful Genius:

The Room

BANGS

Troll 2

Samurai Cop

This Video

you could say i'm Malcolm-esque

damn son, Das Racist crept up on me like this recent beautiful weather. It's pronounced d'ass racist, as in THATS RACIST. Long story short, rap duo based on the long island side of the 5 boroughs. They can mistakenly sound like joke-rap, from their single "combination pizza hut and taco bell", but they probably have some of the smartest lyrics i've listened to in a while, giving shout outs to such figures as Rumi and Camus. Simoultaneously, they seem to burn more trees than the black dragon in 1987. Their relaxed, colorful lyricism brings to mind early 90's hip hop, like tribe or pharcyde, mixed with some of this current trap shit.

you won't be disappointed.
(thanks to abby for being hip to this shit)

the other brooklyn based band has a cool video for one of my favorite songs off of their last album. I just noticed that their bassist looks almost exactly like my sophomore year roommate and all around rad-dude Andrew Balmer
(gio showed me this while we were bromancing in somerville)

fudge

He knows so much about these things.

a few things I've happened upon recently:

- this charming man by the Smiths is my favorite song

- ambulance and fire truck sirens sound like really loud babies crying, which makes a lot of sense

- you can substitute crepes for bread in most kinds of sandwiches

- strawberry cream cheese is quite good

- there was an ancient civilization on the Indus river called Harrappa that rivaled ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, but they died out before giving rise to any significant future cultures, theres also no large amount of proof indicating any strictly heirarchical class structure or warfare, each city was rigorously similar even though they were all extremely distant from eachother, and they had indoor plumbing that is actually more complex than many places in present day India and Pakistan. Their language is as of yet undeciphered.

mth t th flm

Yesterday, in a rootbeer float making mishap, a robust flavored drink was concocted.

Doctor de leche (aka dulce de pepper, #23, or the mcQueen)

it works as follows, in 2 fashions;

neat:

1:1 (in a blender, mix) dulce de leche ice cream, dr.pepper, and ice, blend until as thick as a wendy's frostee.

classic:

float a big scoop of the dulce de leche in a large cup of dr.pepper

the taste is (not very surprisingly) rich as hell, but has an interesting if not almost complex aftertaste.

for maximum artery clogging potency, drink with a crust cake.

Happy apple day.

a project titled "i'm not an artist", using tiled gifs, that you can participate in!

-via itsnicethat.com

fun to watch, i just happened to be listening to Real Estate while watching it, which seemed appropriate somehow.

someuthershit.

doo-dee-da-da-dwaa-dwaaaaaa

some smooth sounds, seems suitable since summer's so soon:

Ariel Pink - round and round

Dirty Projectors - dark eyes (Dylan cover)

Warren G - Summertime in the LBC

Meta and the Cornerstones - Hasta la vista

(as you can tell, i've bookmarked thetapeisnotsticky, thanks to my sweet soul brother, Gio)

not smooth, but the music in this game (by AdultSwimGames) will not allow you to stop playing.

Penguin living with Japanese family forced into indentured servitude, China reports:

bringitbackup

i've been watching these music videos for a few days now. they're good, and if you can't appreciate everything about them then i can't seriously consider you a worthwhile friend.

Stylo- off of Gorillaz new album, it features bruce willis, mos def, and bobby fuckin' womack.

Symphony- Dan Black & kid cuddi, i like the first half of the video better, production value drops thereafter.


shake it to the ground

DJ Blaqstarr & Rye Rye: Shake It To The Ground from Mad Decent on Vimeo.

shit is flyyy. The video is by Mad Decent, of major lazer fame, it's subtly amazing, and not on accident.

and here's a song about getting your dick wet.

no.

wrong, wrooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong.

IMAX3D

for those of you experiencing post avatar depression. You can watch the whole thing on youtub!

Class of 2005

Firstly, and Russianly, First-Person Tetris. Don't really need to explain that, it's pretty fun, I was surprised i'd never seen it before.

Book of Eli
Synopsis: In a world where everyone wears goggles, a handicapped homeless man slaughters people somewhere east of San Francisco.

up next, its mah boy eli. Jk, this film is not my boy. Upon first seeing the trailer I wasn't convinced that in a post-apocolyptic world, people would be willing to be killed by the Zatoichi version of Denzel Washington for the bible, I still think it was pretty dumb, although Gary Oldman was stylin'. I'd rather play fallout3. 60%

Charcoal Black

Is it a soft core porn? a run-of-the-mill buddy cop flick? NO! Samurai Cop is a film, a monument made entirely of pure awful.



Watch from part I, every frame of Samurai Cop is cinema magic.