check it out

This one is going to be short because I don't have much to say. However, I do think each and every one of you should read this thing:

http://blogs.bootsnall.com/SteveFnbrg/

I would love to travel around the world. The thing is I need to earn some major bling before I do that. So for now I'll work on saving money, then in the summer I'll try and make a whole bunch. With luck I'll be ready for a trip when I graduate, a really really long world-wide trip.

Also, if you haven't been to youtube lately, go there, watch some stuff, and let me know what you've come up with. I am especially fond of some of these shorts and how creative people are. It's very cool.

gooh

I spend over two hours watching television tonight. I can't believe how much crap they put in there. It's not the shows, I like the Office and I like Grey's, the thing I can't stand the commercials, product placement, and selfless advertising going on. It's gross. "oh hey WILLIAM SHATNER will be hosting our show next week! Make sure to tune in to the guy who has already milked his freaking career to death." "I love to shred paper, let me use this staples premium shredder and tell how it can even shred CD's, just like it showed on the commercial right before this clip." It's disgusting, and it's what I'm supposed to be learning to fix. In my J399 class we're learning to be better than that, create helpful, global altering advertising. We don't want advertising that hurts society and the world, and I'm pretty sure that's like 98% of stuff out there right now. It's gross and it makes me feel sick. Why do people have to suck so bad so often? Scott told me the other day his uncle ran into Justin Timberlake on a basketball court a while back. Rather, his uncle was denied access to a public court because Justin Timberlake was an ass and didn't give up the public basketball court. I've heard a ton about celebrities that are douche bags; what the hell? No one should be rude, especially super privelaged people who have it all.
That basketball comment thing made me think of a conversation i had with Mark about athletes. I say they're not important, and especially a significant amount less important than teachers, but they get screwed with paychecks. He argued that this wasn't true. Whether or not he was serious he actually kept up an argument that they are role models and junk, but honestly that doesn't matter. If you got rid of one of them, which is more likely to be missed? Without teachers you don't have educated and enriched children, without athletes you don't have......? You don't lose much. I don't care, I applaud their skills and all, but I don't care. Thats my rant for tonight.

CRAP

It's been a short day

Time seems to pass extremely fast these days. I've spent most of today doodling and thinking of things to make, create, etc. I've also been freaking out. I've got a lot of stuff that's due in my J399 class in the next few weeks and it's going to take a lot of work. I'm sure I can do it, but I don't want the stress. I need infinite free time without worries so I can create at my own leisure. This is what I made today.



I'd say I'd look good as a member of South Park, and if they wanted to they could absolutely add me. I could be the cool new kid.
This one at the bottom isn't done yet. I need to redraw the pres because he's needed to be larger and got blurry when I did it. Then I need to alter the backround so the transition from dems to repubs is cleaner and less of a cut-off.

update

Democrats won senate too....

The Election of 06

Today has been a huge day in Politics. The results of Tuesday’s elections are being finalized and changes are being made.
For starters the Democratic Party has gained a majority in the house with 229 members, a large gain of 25 for them. In the Senate, the Democrats gained five new members, and are currently awaiting the results of Virginia- a very close race with a tiny .3% lead for the Democratic challenger. But with that said, the .3% equates to approximately 7,200 votes, so it may be highly likely that the Democrats will also take the Senate. This means a shift in power, and hopefully a change in policies for the final two years of Bush's office. It also brings more of a balance in power, having a republican president and a democratic senate and house seems pretty fair and balanced.
In other political news, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld retired from his position today. I think this might have risen out of the fact that Bush and Rumsfeld have noted that with a shift of American votes to the left, we all want to see changes implemented, and perhaps many of us don't agree with what's happening abroad. All of this is extremely interesting and hopefully bring some changes to our countries politics.
On a smaller scale I have to say I'm pleased with the failure of measure 43 in Oregon, but am somewhat disheartened that so many bans on same sex marriages passed. Colorado, Idaho, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia, and Wisconsin. Tennessee and South Carolina had a staggering 81% and 78% in favor, respectively, while most others were closer to the 50% mark. Either way, I disagree, and that is that. Marijuana is still illegal, and parental notification (the measure I spoke of above) didn't pass anywhere else. Also, stem cell research is allowed in Missouri, in part I'm sure, because of Michael J. Fox and his campaign with Claire McCaskill who also won a spot in Senate.

Some interesting visuals I came across in the NY Times displayed the differences from this election season and past. A few large differences were.


and so on...but pretty interesting how dramatic the differences are over six years.
So that's what I think people should be reading about, the elections, what's going on, and how changes are going to affect us.

and that was that.

I waste so much time, if only it could have gone to someone who would have used it. Once again I didn't accomplish much of anything today. Most of what I completed can be seen above. I played with brushes and let my mind wander.

It's true...

For the first time in a long time I had the urge to learn and really educate myself. I immediately went to CNN and read the top stories of the day, then looked into the political stuff going on, mainly involving the elections and read up on stuff. Then I headed over to NY Times and read some articles about the elections and some information about the results of the Saddam Hussein trials. That then led me to think about Iraq and how little I know about the conflicts going on there, which in turn led me to my favorite informative site, wikipedia.
Overall, I learned a bit more about the world, and I really hope I continue to do this kind of thing. My ultimate goal being that I can declare myself a useful and informed member of society. I don't want to be one of the 30-40% of Americans who don't know what's going on, or who important people in our government are. I don't like that, and I don't like that a comment like, "it was awhile ago, and it happened in Europe" from my German teacher can be brushed of so casually and accepted as an okay reason for not understanding another culture. I want to stop that, and hopefully I can. I think people are capable, they just don't try, and aren't being fed the necessary dosage of correct information.
Anyway, if I president everyone would be super smart and help society grow positively, but that'd be in my idealistic world, and unfortunately that doesn't exist.

Also: do you hate this women as much as I do? Go ahead, look at the other things she posts. It's not that I am not open to others ideas, but I honestly can't stand crazy super republican people, they bug the crap out of me. Any crazy super whatever people for that matter. Crazy super religious, for example. Maybe I'd be okay with crazy super intelligent, or crazy super creative people, yeah, they'd be cool.

The Weekend

In two and a half weeks Thanksgiving will be here. Then in two weeks after that we'll have Christmas break. That's exciting.
I went to the game on Saturday.
I hung out with Jared and Scott and other people at Jared's house. That was interesting.
I've got a lot of work ahead of me.
Two weeks for my individual J project, four or so for the group one.
German project to work on, and constant homework.
Those are the big ones. I want to go home this coming weekend, which means I have to work extra hard this week. Then it'll be lots of work to get my project out before thanksgiving. I hope it turns out like I had imagined, or better.

Bringin Sexy Back....

It rains, and it rains, and it rains, and that is Oregon.
I've been having the urges to get back into writing here, but I haven't really brought myself to do it. Finally though, I'm going to try and get back into the swing of things and write almost everyday if possible.
Despite is being miserable outside I kind of like it. It makes you want to go inside and get warm and then just hang out, or in my case, spend hours upon hours on my computer.

I thought I wrote better back in the day, now it feels quite choppy and not any way like I talk. Like just then, I completed a sentence and didn't leave any room to expand on it. I'm going to have to work on this.

As for the happenings and thoughts of late:
I'm super excited that today is Friday. It means no responsibilities for the next few days and it means I can hopefully finally relax and sleep and play video games and stuff. I've been pretty busy with the 21 credit load I'm taking this term. Towards the beginning of the year it was managable- and it still is to a degree- and everything kind of fell into place. But lately I've been having projects and papers all due at the same time, as if it's been worked out among all the teachers to assign things at the same time, and then to allow us to take a break at the same time as well. The major things on the agenda are my individual and group project for my Creativity and content class. By the way, that class is fantastic, I enjoy the stimiluation it's given me to begin creating ideas and art again. I've drawn more often than I have any other time in my life, and I've been thinking harder too I think. Not to mention the great professor who teaches it, she's way cool, like a mix of my old English teacher Miss Shigamasa and my leadership advisor and teacher Deb Monnier, then she also adds her own very cool personality. She's very contagious, and very fun. Then there is the newly assigned German group project. That one won't actually be too bad. There is a philosophy essay that we'll get on monday. Then in my other Journalism we get exercises every week or so. It doesn't actually sound like much, but they all take time, and obviously that resource is finite. In fact, every one of my resources is in some way limited, so unfortunatley I have to be smart and use them wisely.

I'll tell you what, Music is the key to life man. Just walk around for a few hours and listen to your Ipod or whatever technology you have. Then note the different feelings you have because of the muisc. It's fantatsic! Who would have thought one thing could completely change the scenario and in most of my instances make it so much more surreal and powerful. Putting your music on shuffle is especially effective in creating different moods.

We had an advertising guy come into class yesterday and he gave us some pretty cool ideas. he said, there are ten ways to become a more interesting person.

1.Always Carry A Camera.
-take a photo a day, at least.
-share what you've done.
2. Keep a Scrapbook.
3. Start a Blog!
4. Record a 20 minute interview with someone.
5.Sit in a coffee shop for an hour and make notes of other people's converstaions.
6. Every week read a magazine you've never read before.
7. Collect Something.
8. Read: Understanding Comics, The Mezzanine, and The Visual Display of Quantitative Information.
9. Write 50 words about a piece of art, a piece of music, and a piece of film every month.
10. Talk to your Parents.

So the goal is to just do those for a while, and hopefully come up with some other neat things to do with my life. Hoorah!