Torlando Today

To My Friends

2010-02-22T22:48:00.000-08:00

Hello, so if you are a follower of this blog and/or website I would like to inform you that I've integrated this blog with my personal website and will no longer be using this platform. So if you were subscribing to this blog via the rss or atom feed then the changes I've made will affect you. If you still wish to subscribe to this feed, go directly to torlandomileshakes.com and click on the subscription buttons or click on this link if you sub with bloglines.
Thank you and I hope you continue to enjoy my bloggin.

A cat smoking a cigarette

2009-10-28T21:39:00.001-07:00

Another short poem I thought of tonight.

Tonight as I drove home,
I saw a lot of cats crossing the street.
I thought I saw one smoking a cigarette.

A kid I remember

2009-10-28T21:37:00.001-07:00

This is a short poem I am writing about a kid I remember from kindergarden.

When I was in kindergarden
There was a kid who was in a fire as a baby
Half of his face was burned and his right arm was gone
He also had no right ear.
I remember feeling sad that he couldn't properly do the pledge of elligience.
Or it was the other side of his body and I remember thinking, he lucked out because he can still do the pledge of elligience.
Memory is alive that way.
We also shared a locker together.
Later on in life I found out that he was really good at soccer.
I always thought he was from India but now I'm thinking he was probably Hispanic.

The end.

Something Wrong with this Picture

2009-10-22T10:37:00.000-07:00

So I was on my daily internet browse today when this pop-up came along to entice.

I almost clicked to win, but then I noticed something. Who can tell me what it is?

Professional website

2009-10-14T07:28:00.001-07:00

Hello world!
I've got my new portfolio website up and running for the most part torlandomileshakes.com
Not sure if that's a link since I'm using a moble app to write this but if it's not then I will fix it later.
You will notice when you open the page that it includes my other blog miles of smiles on the home page. So those two things are merged now and the rest of the site holds my art work.
So the new site will be a place for a more cohesive blog and portfolio and torlando today will continue to be the rediculousness of my happening and stories from work and other rantings.
Thanks and I hope you visit the site!

Raphael Saadiq "Let's Take a Walk"

2009-10-07T23:47:00.000-07:00

take a walk outside from videos222 on Vimeo.

I'm not sure why I decided that this would be best on this blog, but I did. I'm not sure that I'm even crazy about it. I do love doo-wop, but maybe I don't like such obvious throw backs, you know, maybe I want something a little more subtle. I feel like this kid has just watched the VH1 Temptations movie as much as I did and told the director I want that. I could be wrong... but those were david ruffin glasses.

I think my main point this evening is that there is a shift going on in the pop world. And I don't know if I mention this at all but I feel like everything is going back to the 50's. About five and half years ago I started to make this change in myself. I wore more casual slacks and shirts with collars. But at the time it was just my mom and dad asking me why I was dressing like an old man. Since that time I've gone back and forth in between jeans and trousers, but after my late night online shopping spree I'm totally going for it. I bought nothing but slacks and sweaters and a beautiful hat that I just learned is shipping. This hat:

I'm no trend setter though, I'm just a guy who dresses kinda weird and then all of a sudden is a complete trendster without changing a thing. Its used to bother me in high school but then I went through that I don't care what people think of me stage, but now I'm in that I do care what people think of me, but in a healthy way. What I'm really trying to say is, I'm bout to look goooooooood.

science

2009-10-04T08:32:00.000-07:00

When I was in the eighth grade I had a science teacher that asked the class what was the smallest size mirror that you could use and still see your whole body. I thought, well, I suppose as long as you were back far enough and you could still see the mirror, then it could probably get pretty small. She said no, and that the mirror had to be at least your exact height and width in order to see your entire body. That was when I stopped trusting teachers to come up with real facts. I went home that night to test her theory only to find out that it was incorrect. Today I figure the only science she really valued was the science it took to give her enormous fake boobs. The tough thing is, you can't teach kids that sometimes their teachers are teaching bogus material. That would be a scenario when the exception became the rule. And kids will do that, so you never teach the exception, you only make them.

I remember another time in elementary school when I was taught something by a teacher that didn't have much authority behind it. There was a boy in my class that made fun of me for something, I can't really remember, it had something to do with an overhead projector. And later on that day she tried to explain to me that emotional scars last longer than physical scars. And she sited and emotional example from her life and a physical example. She had some scar on her hand and said that the scar would eventually go away. I thought, well you're pretty old and if it hasn't gone away yet, IDK, but I didn't say that to her. Around that time it became popular amongst boys to scratch a small layer of skin off the top of your hand as a test of strength. We were boys, what do you expect? Looking at my skin to day I can still see a faint scar of where I tested my manhood and yet I have no clue as to how that boy offended me. All I remember was that I was at the overhead projector and he said something. And the only reason I remember who it was that said anything was because he was really good at basketball and could nearly dunk on an eight foot rim, which I can sort of do now. Thinking of those two "scars" neither of them are really that big of a deal.

In conclusion, I'm not saying don't trust teachers, because they can be helpful, but do realize that some of them are really full of crap. So maybe this is a message to teachers, don't be full of crap or some kid is going to call you out on it, and maybe that emotional scar will last longer than any physical laceration, but I doubt it because at the end of the day, you have a job, an education, a car, house, maybe not a lot of money, but good benefits, and you are an adult.

Two Quizes in Twenty Minutes

2009-09-09T08:08:00.001-07:00

I just had a truly terrifying experience. I looked at my schedule this morning suddenly realizing that there would be a quiz at the beginning of the class. So I decided to be on time. As I sat down, I looked to make sure I was sitting next to the most bodacious woman. And I got out my pen and turned off my iPod. And I looked around and saw that everyone was reading a copy of a story by Benjiman Franklin and I thought oh great they must have put something up on oncourse and I did not get it. I didn't even check. (bare in mind this is an art history class - renaissance) so I think well Benjiman Franklin was a Renaissance man I suppose. And so I get out my phone and check oncourse. Well the server is jammed and I can't connect. So I'm like ok this is alright I'll just wing it. I know about old ben, a penny saved and all that, catheder, illegitimate children ok I got this. Then the ai comes in and it is not the normal ai. And I think, well swine flu is going around and the university is really pressuring instructors to stay home so I say must be a sub. And then he passes out the quiz. Four questions. First question, what did Benjiman Franklin put on his chart to show he made a fault? Ok easy, a check mark. It's a guess but it makes some sense. Question two, Benjiman Franklin wrote of a man that bought an ax, what did the man decide to think at the end? Oooookkkkaaaayyy, he decided that he didn't actually need to use the ax. I'm doing gooooooood. Question three, who did Mark Weber say was the example of a "essential capitalist"? ............. Thomas Jefferson? Why have I never heard about any of this in class!?! Then I look around and realize that I don't recognize a single person in this class. Am I in the wrong class? I look at the top of the paper. Section number L241.....hmmm......my class number is what? A102? I'm in the wrong class. Ai says there is 5 minutes left on the quiz, as rolling stones would say, should I stay or should I go now? I check my schedule again, I'm in the wrong room, I go to this room tomorrow.
So I decide to fold up the quiz, get up, not say a word, not look at anybody, and just leave. I arrive at my proper class I walk into the lecture hall, the professor says we are on the essay portion, start there. The exam says describe the image. I've never seen this image before in my life!!! I look at the two previous questions to gain some sort of context. Some glimmer of hope. The question is a list. Title, artist, date, etc. THAT DOESNT HELP!!! HOW WOULD I EVEN KNOW THOSE ANSWERS!!!
So I wing it.
Two quizes in twenty minutes.

Obama's Article in the NewYork Times on Healthcare reform.

2009-08-17T21:56:00.000-07:00

You know what? I'm one of the 50 million Americans who don't have health insurance. You know why? Because I can't afford it. I'm 24 and an independent student and am not covered by my parents anymore. I can barely afford my most basic needs. I have about two or three health items that could use some attention but they would all be considered pre-existing conditions because I had them checked out when I was on my parents plan, and got turned down by the insurance companies for coverage, and even after paying the doctors straight up, the problem is still there. Now ain't that somethin' else. Read this article in the New York Times by President Obama and pass it on. Why We Need Health Care Reform

6th sense technology. The tourists dream machine.

2009-08-06T18:45:00.000-07:00

I just caught this TED video over at code2ave.com and can I just say that I love technology. This is something that I would use, although I would prefer if it were in the form of eyeglasses and a medallion for the projector. The eyeglasses, having a couple different styles and made available in tinted or non and the medallion hopefully with either a piece symbol or the continent of africa for a lens cap. I could also see it being stolen from the MIT kid who invented it and then becoming an app in the app store. AAAAPPPPPPLLLLLLEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Inventions of the future.

2009-07-19T20:01:00.000-07:00

When I was 9 years old I had two great inventions. My mom just bought a caller ID and I realized text could be transferred through telephone cords. I thought that radio stations should be able to do this with telephone cords and display the names of musicians and songs that were playing. Little did I know that this would happen through the internet and satellites. When XM Radio came out I thought, great, there goes my great invention done better. The next invention came at the age of 11 when I invented Roller Blades with shocks in the wheels, those too became a reality but not by me. Those are just a couple examples.
But now in this new segment entitled "Inventions of the Future" I will be letting out my latest ideas for inventions that I think would work. Only to let them be discovered and invented for the purposes of human advancement.

1) In the future television, computers and telephones will all operate via free public wifi and will all be variations of the same thing. Phones will be full out computers, tv's will be phones and computers will be tvs and vice versa. Televisions will have a computer operating system and hard drive where it will store television shows, and movies and any other file that is desired. There will be a built in webcam that will allow for video conferencing and the remote control will operate like a wireless mouse or wii remote.
(you might be saying to yourself, "ain't that the idea of AppleTV?" Naw!, It aint't, you don't know when I thought of that either!)

2) Individually Wrapped Frozen Pizza Slices. Look, imediate nay sayers can be shut down by he individually wrapped cheeses. Its a soccer mom thang, ya'll don't know about that. You might got three kids and all of them want a different kind of pizza so its a waste to make a whole frozen pizza and those individual pans are too expensive and the kids hardly ever eat the whole thing. Just unwrap, pop them in the toaster oven and you're good. (And pizza pockets are gross.)

3) Back to technology. In the future we need to think about our cars. and I'm not talkin about flying cars, i'm not talking about gas or power. I'm talking about systems. Right now, we are leaving behind the cd player in the car and starting to plug in our ipods, but in the future, you won't even need to bring your ipod, your car will have a built in hard drive. Prolly a terabyte put in the trunk like you used to put in them six disk changers. The stereo will be a sophisticated touch screen interface that will connect to the internet via wifi (3G network in the early years) and gps. Much like the television there will be a built in webcam and telephone application that goes based off of your internet telephone number that you will also use for all of your other appliances, television, cellphone, computer. And oh yeah, you wont have a cell phone plan, you'll just buy the device and operate via wifi. (But thats when wifi is everywhere)

I give the invention of these three things, two years to go from luxury to necessity.

Cooking

2009-07-19T19:53:00.000-07:00

I think I have thought to myself a total of three times that I would like to start cooking more.
Each time I think that I try to cook and end up mildly disappointed. Its not that my food is gross, but i will say that for all of that effort in buying ingredients and preparing and then cooking, the return is very meager indeed. Not to mention the clean up.
For me the real miracle is in food that you don't have to buy, or cook or clean up after. The food is always amazing and I'm always happy at the end. That's why I love america and why being a kid was so great.

some thangs I didn't know

2009-07-11T23:58:00.000-07:00

I didn't know A&E gave ex-tampa bay buccaneers wide-out and ESPN analyst, Keyshawn Johnson, his own interior design show. I watched it today and thoroughly enjoyed myself.

(they ended up not going with the wallpaper, much to keyshawn's dismay)

Did you know that kip takes pictures?

2009-07-07T21:37:00.000-07:00

yeah, kip from napoleon dynamite. This is hilarious.

Jupiter jack

2009-07-05T20:20:00.001-07:00

Man sittin here watchin the tv and billy mays comes on sellin the Jupiter jack. Go to jupiterjack.com to see what it's about. He was definately at level ten the whole time. There was a role playing segment when he actually used the device. It was also at a level ten.

Going back to indiana

2009-07-05T20:16:00.001-07:00

I always have a particular experience whenever I travel. I tend to become engaged with the pertinence of where I live which is Indiana and reflect on the places I've lived in the past. (I.e. Michigan, out west, down south) maybe I will one day live in the east although I do frequent the idea of becoming a fisherman in Mexico or a house painter in Spain. But I am a terrible fisherman and knowing my luck they are probably really into wallpaper in Spain. So when I do travel, which is not often, (I do not know if that is enough or not enough) but when I do I become caught up with the idea of going back to Indiana. You know the old Jackson 5 song. As I was driving north through indiana I took notice of a true Midwestern sunset. The plane farmland with dilapitated barns and hawks perched on highway signs. The sun, orange and round bursting through the straight and tall stick like trees in the distance. I saw with my eyes the establishing shot that gave meaning and metaphor to my trip back to my home state. And that old Jackson 5 song played on the radio. "Cause that's where my baby's from. "

A Hunger Artist

2009-06-30T23:17:00.001-07:00

This is a copy of a post I shared on my new blog specifically about animation, and I just realized that I probably should have posted it here as well, just in case some of you out there didn't add miles of smiles to your bloglines or next preferred blog reader. tut tut. PS I'm back in America and I had a good time in japan.

I am very excited about this post. The reason for this is because I finally have jumped through the proper compression hoops to upload my and dear friend Erin Robinson's last video art piece from our video class last semester. We started the project around spring break time and finished in late april. We primarily worked in Adobe AfterEffects, and also used Flash, Photoshop for coloring, and Premiere Pro CS4 for the final edit. My good friend DM Stith provided the music from his album Heavy Ghost on the Asthmatic Kitty Record Label and he also portrayed the Hunger Artist himself. The story was inspired by Franz Kafka's short story "A Hunger Artist". Enjoy.

A Hunger Artist from Torlando Hakes on Vimeo.

The Sound of Silence

2009-06-18T08:59:00.000-07:00

My heart was a little heavy today, and head like the milk weed. Sometimes I think God battles negativity with generosity. My own thoughts of negative things or situations are egged on by the world and yet I feel that the universe is for me.
The battle is fierce and the clouds of dankness are thick. But God won today.

I remember being very impressed by the music of Simon & Garfunkel when I first watched The Graduate but I never got into them beyond that until a few days ago when I heard an instrumental version of The Sound of Silence in a restaurant in Japan. The song could not escape my mind and my roommate who was visiting me would hum the harmony with me as i worked out the melody with my own hums. Then I looked up this old recording of a performance

When they talk about people not loving each other in the beginning, that's where my heart was feeling heavy. But as I said God won today. And the people of Japan have been very generous. We decided to go to Dominoes today. I used to work at Dominoes and I can tell you that in America Dominoes is not a group that is happy to serve anyone. But these workers were legitimately happy to serve us pizza. They were so moved by the spirit of service that they gave all of us Dominoes soup bowls that I didn't know existed.

Unfortunately their generosity was lost on this ol' poopy pants pupil. But the universe did not give up on me. As I became progressively more self-aggravating as the night went on, I felt that the only remedy would be some good old fashion mac donald's french fries. And so I walked all the way down there to find out they were already closed. So I figured I'd go down to the Lawson Station and pick something up, which I did. But I really wanted meat. And Yoshinoya was close, and open. So I went.
Upon ordering and trying my best to describe that I wanted no onion I engaged in conversation with a young Japanese man. His English was about as good as my Japanese so we immediately had something in common. He asked me how I was, I asked him how he was. And that was about the gist of it. So here is where the sound of silence and the universe come together to win tonight. The song talks of people who are talking without speaking and hearing without listening. If I could have said more in his language or if he knew more of mine, I would have talked to him and he would have heard me. But instead I think he listened to me and I spoke to him without him hearing anything or me talking at all. And he bought my meal. I understood that even though we were strangers, I was a guest in his country and we were brought together for a purpose.

The Five Crowns

2009-06-10T06:45:00.000-07:00

My family is pretty musical. My moms dad had a group called Hot Howey and the Hot lips back in his heyday and he played the saxophone for them. And my Dad was a Michael jackson impersonator in College and then went on to produce an album in the mid-90's. And I was always told that his dad, my grandpa was in an old chicago doowhop group called The Five Crowns. We just found a track on Youtubes. All Hail Youtubes.

Miles of Smiles

2009-06-08T05:55:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone, I've decided to start a new blog. One a little more geared toward art and comics and whatnot. We'll see how diligent I am with it. I'm making it under the pretense that it will be a place where people can see my stuff when they ask as opposed to me subjecting my artwork upon the few readers of Torlando Today. I'll
still do Torlando Today, but it will prolly be my usual complaints about the Bannekids and other poopery nonsense. and the link is milesofsmilescomic.blogspot.com

And for some more japan you can of course go to my flickr But I will give you a preview.
These photos were taken in Kyoto. We saw a lot of shrines and temples on this trip. But a couple of impressive things here were the massive coy. I've never seen a group of fish this large in an outdoor pond before. They were beautiful. My professor is chinese and he told me of the old fable about how if a coy swims up a waterfall it turns into a dragon and that's like getting your big break in life. I don't know about the getting a break in life thing but I just might believe these things can turn into dragons. Preferably ones that breathe snakes who in turn breathe killer bees. Its a trifecta.

We also went to the ocean on this trip to see the two rocks that were tide together with rope? I got some good pics and since I'm sort of into frogs like weird white women are, I decided to show this funny statue, which I'm sure has some sort of religious meaning.

This was a really neat shrine. Solid Gold.

Just a few photos today

2009-05-25T07:06:00.001-07:00

this is the welcome sign for us students to the photography and film school here in osaka. I believe it is a college but it behaves more like a high school with classrooms and lockers and a prinicple. the principle really likes how fat my belly is.

here is a little good luck shrine where you ring a huge bell, bow twice, clap twice, pray, then bow again and make a prayer. The principle of the photograph school said I midth nee to pray for a girlfriend. I sort of agree.

here we are at a sushi bar on a conveyor belt. I had a lot of high price fish.
ok bye

Made in Japan

2009-05-24T08:27:00.000-07:00

Today I arrived in Japan. Its my first time out of the country and I'm sort of like, ok this is neat. Everyone has been pretty nice so far. We went down town and saw some of the city. There were some pretty hip lookin dudes with GoKu hair. I didn't know it could do that in real life.
I also figured out how to bypass jet lag, that's by sleeping/being awake during the time your destination is while you're on the plane and using one of those neck pillows that look like seat cushions for public restrooms. Subsequently you can use those pillows in the airplane lavatory to ease your situation during "mobile relief". Being in this foreign land makes me want to pick up some of that foreign language (if you know what I mean)(chances are you do because I'm speaking english and most of my readers understand english)(perhaps a hidden metaphor would have sprung if I used another language like spanish, ¿me entiendes?¿eh? ¿eh?) So yeah, I'm bringing out some of my old missionary language learning techniques so I can impress my friends with about 20 or less japanese words.
ja mata

Manmachine

2009-05-22T07:29:00.000-07:00

I'm getting ready to leave for japan this fine morning and as i sat down to eat my rich & creamy edy's Grand ice cream for breakfast, I read a really good webcomic. it has been really hard so far in the web comic sphere to find things that are truly beautiful. And Manmachine is really beautiful. You may want to check it out.

2009-04-11T06:29:00.001-07:00

So the other night, there was a church dance. And you should know that church dances are very removed from normal college clubbing atmospheres. We have a book of conduct that says dance rooms should be well lit inviting the presence of the holy ghost. Because as it turns out he's afraid of the dark. this little light of mine is nothing more than a mickey mouse night light. I've had it since I was five. And the dancing at these dances is partially rhythmic partially swing with the understanding that both terms are relative. So I went to this dance and I was not excited to go. I was a camp counselor for a few summers and I figured I'd see some of my kids that had turned 18 recently. I was right. And I felt obligated to ask them to dance, that inward feeling that tugs at my ego. I was a very cool counselor. It also just so happens that I am on the committee that organized this particular dance. I'm a very person and I don't really have time to help as much as I should, between school, a job, private business and hulu.com My time is stretched thin. And I'm not sure but I think it was my responsibility to find a dj, being the most sensibly urban of the group. But I just didn't have the time you know? So I told them I know someone, he's really cool, very fashionable, great taste...His name is Mac...He's an mp3j he's got a great interface. Mac wasn't available so they ended up going with some geek named Dell. so I get to the party, its just as I expected, and I didn't want to dance. they had lighting and streamers and they forgot about decorating so half hour before it started we just grabbed all of the holiday decorations we could find and figured we'd have a multi-holiday theme, you know? Why spread out the holidays when we can just cram 'em in before easter. The decorations were a smash! I saw Father Christmas and the Great Pumpkin forming a limbo line. The thanksgiving turkey started laying eggs and the easter bunny got jealous. John Smith left Pocahontas for one of the Angels Heard on High. All was going well until Dell started to fatigue. He became an emotional wreck when he started playing Disturbia after playing a Chris Brown song, started to skip and we found ourselves without music at a dance. Now I do not DJ. It is not my thing. Somethings are, some are not. I don't do dances and especially not church dances, my tastes...are to worldly. But alas I was the one with the ipod in my pocket, which is funny because I almost left my house with out it but something told me to go back and get it, I think it was the mickey mouse night light. And so I plugged into the sound system and started playing Prince, it was off of his songs formally known as hits record. I had it. 1999 is a little ironic ten and twenty years later. Its like reading 1984 or watching Demolition Man with sylvester stallon. I was very worried about censorship. I kept screening the songs for curse words before I played them. I started to run out of clean wholesome dance music toward the end of the night...so I began to frantically download pirated clean versions of songs formally know as hits.
so thats my perpetual lesson in reading the fine print before you volunteer to do anything.

Announcement Doodles

2009-04-05T21:14:00.000-07:00

this sunday's doodle was inspired by one of my top five favorite tv shows, Friday Night Lights. I won't say how the season ended or anything but you could say that this picture is a clue. I will say that I was completely satisfied with the season as a whole, I think there was a certain amount of closure that I needed and a good amount of cliff hanging.

Announcement Doodles

2009-03-22T16:08:00.000-07:00

And now for a new segment we like to call "Announcement Doodles". I've got a mind deficiency, at least I think it is, where when there is one thing that needs my attention, I have a hard time focusing on it unless there is something else competing for that attention. So at church when I as a nice little mormon boy need to be paying attention to the talks, I draw. I've decided that it might be fun to display the drawings on my blog. So here is drawing one.

for the younger kids in the audience it's a scene from the lourne michaels produced feature length film, "the coneheads"

Got to love black youth

2009-03-16T19:31:00.000-07:00

this would be a bannekid, but i don't know if they could figure that one out on their own.

James update

2009-03-12T18:10:00.001-07:00

Well today James had his acting debut premiere in my video art class as the farm mouse who moved to Kalamazoo. It got raive reviews and apparently it all went to the mouse's head. James figured out how to escape from his cage. I found him when I got home munchin on a pile of edamame pods. Bad mouse! Bad bad mouse!! Luckily he is too scared to jump off of our octagonal coffee table or else he might have pulled off the "mouse-shank redemption" of a life time.

Mix and Pokemon/Ben-10

2009-03-05T08:11:00.000-08:00

The other night at work I was asked by a kid if I could let him pick up something from his house as we dropped off his little sister on the bus run and then go back to banneker. I reluctantly did so. The boy's name is Stewart and Will Rose says he looks like a character from duckman. I think Ajax is who he's talking about but we were both a little foggy on what Ajax really looked like since we were both kids when that show was popular.

So Stewart comes out with a box that once held printer paper with a drawing taped to the cover. We get back to the banneker center and he says, "Torlando will you play my game that I made up with me?" I said, "of course!" only as a good after school facilitator should. And we proceeded to play the second most weird game I've ever played in my life. The first place belonging to a Ouija board game I played in the eight grade with my friend Adam when we met a 19th century lady spirit from the Orient that told us the key to life was happiness. Stewart's game was a close second though, no, I am officially declaring Stewart's game, Mix and Pokemon/Ben-10 as the weirdest game I've ever played.

Here's how to play: Each player selects which character he/she wants to be. You can be the evil villain Mix, who is a gangster with a blue hat, a gun in one hand and an axe in the other and a fancy "S" on his shirt. (You know, the kind every fourth grader learned how to draw with the six vertical lines connected by diagonal lines) Your other option is Ben-10. Then you select which weapons you want to use and how many of each you want. Stewart then draws them on a stickie note. He asked me first so I said, I'll be Mix and I want a Gun with 100 rounds, I want an axe, and I want ten hand grenades. Then it was his turn. He chose Ben-10 and wanted 100 gnome warps, a gnome warp escape grappling hook and three pokemon. I said "what's a gnome warp?" He said,
"a portal that when you drop in it, you can't get out and you'll be stuck forever." I replied, "how can you get out?" He said, "with the escape grappling hook." And so I bought one of those, and added to my purchase the "perpetual prison" (That was my idea). Then he drew on my stickie note a prison that was built one thousand feet in the air. I said, "perfect, I'll take 100 of them." Then he got a bazooka to blow his self out and a flying alien to get safely down.
There are three dice to role, this determines how many spaces you move, once you've landed on a space you do what it says and then draw a card to see how many more spaces you move. He landed on the battle space that meant we had go to battle. He threw me in the gnome warp, I grappling hooked out of there and shot him three times. He sook his pokemon on me and then I hit him with five grenades and he died and had to go back to start. At banneker we don't let the kids win, its sort of our thing. Then I landed on "buy a car" and because I had 1000 gold pieces saved up I bought a blue mustang hot wheel. And that replaced the eraser head that was my token. It was a grueling match, many battles and blood loss, I got married, bought more cars, I even got some pokemon of my own, including Raichu, some weird Picachu morph. In the end I bought all of Stuarts cars and caused him to go bankrupt. It would have been a done deal but the other staff members called for "snack time" and we ran down to eat our dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets.

The end.

coming soon, pictures commemorating this epically weird game!

James

2009-03-01T13:47:00.000-08:00

Much to my roommates' future surprise and potential discomfort, on saturday, I bought a pet mouse. I know what you are thinking, "aren't you Torlando Hakes, Hater of all animals and fearer of pet shops?" Yes, yes I am the same man. But allow me to explain.

Last thursday I completed a project and had the critique, it all went well. As the class period was coming to a close I asked my teacher what the next assignment would be, to which he replied that it was open ended. I found myself clueless as to what to do next. Most of my projects had just fallen together or I had the idea a couple of months in advanced. Well I was puzzled, what new art project could I possibly conjure up now? I thought. Then I remembered a children's story my mom came up with and asked me to illustrate and I thought, what if I did a video project along those lines and since the story involves a mouse, what if I had a real mouse.
The presented a problem. One, I don't want any pet, I hate pets, right? Two getting a mouse would mean that I would have to go to a pet store. "NO!!" I exclaimed, "Not a pet shop!" When I was in middle school I developed an intense fear of pet shops. My friend angelo kim and his sister "and-law" took me to a small pet shop in my home town of Kalamazoo. The owner of the place thought it would be fitting to have various reptiles and birds out of their cage and lounging around the store. I became frightened that these critters were going to stage an attack opening the rat and other rodent cages letting them run amok in the store crawling up my pant legs and birds flying in my hair flapping their wings ferociously onto my forehead. I had to get out of there.
This experience and others led me to shun pet stores from my life.
So mustering up as much vim and vigor as I could I entered the conveniently located petco and bought my mouse. Nobody in the store was particularly helpful which prolonged the experience, leaving me to search for mouse necessities on my own. I found a ball, and a watering apparatus and bedding. I found the cramped quarters of the mouse, rat and gerbil den, gross. And I eventually found James. My mouse.
I first thought to myself that as soon as I was done with the project that I would just let him go into the wild, but then I watched doctor dolittle 2 and thought maybe thats not such a good idea. Then I thought perhaps I could give him to my sister for her thirteenth birthday, then I realized she's not a six year old. Hmmm, Banneker maybe? I don't know if that'll fly.
When I took James home and prepared his cage, I had a little conversation with him while he was in his ball. He's easy to talk to, and a good listener. Sometimes I wish people had such big ears so they could listen like James.
There is also a lot in a name. Calling him James is the best decision I'm made in recent history. My first pet ever was a rodent. It was a guinea pig named Jesse. At that time, Jessica was my favorite name, and my family has a thing with names ending with the long "e" sound. For example my mom and aunts, tammy tracy and terri. And when I was a kid, Tory. Now-o-days my favorite name is James, a name I used to not like because its hard to make it possessive or plural, but now I just love that name.
So yeah, I've got a pet mouse, I guess this only adds to my life long feud with cats.

Catchin up w/ SNL

2009-02-20T10:03:00.000-08:00

So its been a while since i've caught up with Saturday Night Live and today I found this little gem from Keenan on James Harrison the Line Backer for the Steelers that ran back a 100 yard interception and went on oxygen immediately after scoring because he was so out of breath. Enjoy.

I think he's still out of breath. I've never seen a man stay winning and losing at the same time before.

America let me tell you something.

2009-02-17T20:18:00.001-08:00

America. Yesturday I watched bernie mac show and realized that he did what could be qualified as the first vlog of scripted sitcom history. So now in memory of funny man bernie mac I will be referring to my audience as "America" so I hope you really are American.
America we have a serious problem. Now I realize that my last post was doom and gloom dreams not commin true and whatnot I stand by that. dreams don't come true, plans do and my plans don't match my night time dreams America! My problems today exist in reality or rather perceived reality. I just realized that I spent the weekend romances watching startrek next generation with my roommate dixon. What's happening to me America? Have I lost my mojizzle? Tell me America about your mojoless weekend if you had one. If you indeed had a date then in the censored words many a movie watched on network tv, buzz off.

2009-02-17T06:35:00.003-08:00

I woke up a little saddened by my dream this morning.

2009-02-17T06:35:00.001-08:00

I have a couple prefaces to this entry to point out ironic findings and also to preserve abiguity.
Preface 1: I'm a contractor listed on angie's list so of course I get spammed and the latest email was valentimes themed. It said "mending a broken heart?" which is ironic because it was an add to find a good cardiologist which I don't need nor do I have a broken heart in the traditional sense of the idiom. None the less I was in fact nearly heart broken because of this dream, and the timing of this spam, I felt, was apt.
Preface 2 (to preserve ambiguity): I am a very visual person. My memory works like watching a video. I can see events very clearly in my mind, it's not photographic though because I can't sit down and memorize a book, it's filmographic and plays like a video. So my dreams are extremely vivid and I almost always remember them and everyone I've met in my life shows up in them. Last night my high school quarterback was there with a few people I met at college in class a couple of semesters ago and they knew each other, so there you go.
Also last night another friend showed up in my dream. This was the second time she's showed up in my dreams (don't worry it was all clean). What's wierd is the first time she showed up in my dream I hadn't met her in real life yet but it was her and this time our meeting carried the complications of our real life relationship. As we were walking my high school quarterback shot me a text and then I looked back and was holding hands with my friend. Then I woke up. I was saddened by two reminders. One was that I fooled myself into thinking that I'm saddened about not being in a relationship right now and the other is the sad realization that dreams do not come true.
Postface (do those exist?): I'm just friends with this girl and don't have intentions of trying to pursue anything if thats what you're thinking, dreams mess with your subconscious more than your subconscious messing with your dreams in my opinion, but if you are reading this and you think its you, it probly isn't. I would have tagged you duh. Besides I had over seven different high school quarterbacks, it could have been any of them and how many friends that are girls do I have? Miles! (thats the spanish word for thousands, not my little brother, he spells it with a "y"). I have a mercucio view of dreams, you know queen Moab.

DC Vlog

2009-02-07T19:25:00.001-08:00

Inauguration Trip 2009 from Torlando Hakes on Vimeo.

Argg

2009-02-07T18:51:00.001-08:00

I am really feeling burnt out today. I have a piece I've working on for the digital art show for probably the last six months and the art is done but I cannot get the presentation to work and it is frustrating the hell out of me... Now there is an interesting adage. Is the hell really being frustrated out of me? Or has it caused me to swear more than ralphie's dad from Christmas story, joe pechi in home alone and ol' semitti sam combined? I had to leave. I went for a walk. It was nice, it was a warm evening, got me out of my room away from my computer. But I still feel like I'm not refreshed and I really need a refresher. Anyway you can check on my progress at disasterpeace.110mb.com on a good day.

It's snowing upwards

2009-02-03T07:45:00.001-08:00

It's snowing upwards
I'm not sure what to think of that
It's slow and hardly blustery
And demands no fear
It's light and uplifting
I find that interesting
Because the walk to school
Clashes with that idea.

The metro

2009-01-22T10:40:00.007-08:00

I am from a small town and I have never ridden on a metro system without my uncle mike. This is a little scary. I would take out my video camera but I am scared like goin to Woodward.
I just got done however with a service project in the ghetto. Prolly worse than any area in my mission and we went door knocking giving out energy lightbulbs. I went with two strangers named iayelet and john. They were from the Maryland side of DC. They sort of reminded me of my aunt tammy's crowd but a little less critical of people well actually a lot less critical. I was glad I went with them because they had what they called the robot which was a tomtom gps and they guided me to the metro and told me how to use it. They also wished me luck with my art.

DC to it's fullest.

2009-01-22T10:40:00.005-08:00

Throughout all of the activities there was so much to do I hardly had time to blog about it. But allow me to give a massive overview of the trip after the service project.

When I got into the mall area my first initiative was to visit as many museums as possible but everything in the museums I visited was so overwhelmingly amaizing that I took forever to go through the ones I went to.

I started with the freer gallery of art. I believe the features artists name was john mcneil whistler. There was something about the pallet of colors he used that really blew me away. It was so soft and desaturated in a way that extended the depth of plain out to the hemisphere. The rest of the gallery was filled with ancient Asian art. From sculptures to ink paintings and a 54 foot scroll of a hand painted panned landscape. I felt overwhelmed to be around such an amaizing history of art and such brillance in execution.

After that I went to the hirsshorne gallery of contemporary art and got a glimps of yoko Ono's wish tree. There were some really awesome inkjet prints and video installations and sculptures. I like how the new stuff requires a mastery of multiple mediums. The new scultper must paint and the painter must sculpt and the video artist has to do everything.

From there I caught up with my new bff celeste. We met on the bus ride there. And in the immortal words of michaelangelo in reference to April o'neil "I think I'm in luuuv!"
We briefly went to the African art museum. I feel about those sculptures the same way I feel about spike lee joints. (that I can stop pretending to like them since racism is over)
After that we tried to go to the haulocost museum but we were too late it was closed. So we decided to go eat. Now for some reason there are no visible eateries in the Washington DC most visited tourist attraction so we decided to take the metro rail towards where my good friends James and melinda Baird live. The whole time I told celeste that I was going to visit friends and that's all so after dinner when James came to pick us up she got scared away by his excedingly great age and hopped back on the metro to visit some of her own friends. At James and Lindy's we played a game and talked and then I had to fast track it back to the hotel for an interview with wtiu.

The interview went well. I thought that I rambled a little bit and I know I was specifically trying not to but overall it went well. So well that they decided to follow me around on inaugoration day.

Inaugoration day

2009-01-22T10:40:00.003-08:00

We left for the inaugoration at 6:45 in the morning. We took our charter bus to the rfk stadium and then took a shuttle to the city. From there we were off and rollin like a hurd of turtles. It was celeste and I with the wtiu crew bill, shameka and chad. Bill reminded me of a slightly more a.d.d. 46 year old al doan. At least we sort of clicked in a similar way, which is sort of weird because he's actually four years older than both of my parents and has an hijo that is three years older than me and yet we were instant friends. Shameka was the reporter and was so jovial and out going that she could talk to absolutely anyone. She was most comfortable with talking to every police officer she could find and asking directions. Chad was also cool. He sounded exactly like David nosco but different personality. He was being mentored by bill.

The crowd was obese. There really were two million people there. It was so immense that tammy got lost, our group got seperated and by miracle we found Richard and his family. We were supposed to meet them by the lincoln memorial building but I went to the Jefferson by mistake. So we back pedalled to the Washington monument. We saw canadians for Obama, jamaicans for Obama, kenyans doing Obama dances, whtie people in shorts and bare foot. And we saw every black woman over 50 in their Sunday best fur coat. Bill even let me use his $60,000 hd camera that records on blueray disc and film some of the people. What?!?
It was about 11:30 at that time and almost ready for the main event. We decided that the WWII monument had the most visible and audible jumbotrons so that's where we went.
Obama nailed it. I was beginning to miss those inspiring speaches from the campaign days. And whether you were there or at home I doubt you had a dry eye. This is definately an "I remember where I was when..." moment.

After the speech we got caught up with shameka and celeste and tried to make our way over to the haulicost museum figuring that we could look around there while the crowd dispersed. Well we were wrong. It took almost an hour just to get there by foot and we were only a block and a half away. As were walking through the crowd celeste got a little ahead and I tried to catch up and this girl about eleven or twelve said "let him through he needs to get to his fiancé!" not girlfriend not wife not even friend but fiancé. (can you tell I'm saying fiancé in the fancy smarmy voice?)

So we got to the museum but it was closed again. So then we said well, we're hungry, let's go get something to eat. Yeah. Right. Trying to get out of there was like waiting for FEMA. There were people all over the streets in the museums on the floor. Kids were crying we were all cold couldn't find any thing to eat and they shut down all but one station of the metro. And I mentioned it before but tammy was still lost. (tammy's a nine year old girl that came with her grandpa) By this time shameka was not doin so hot. She was cold hungry and had to pee and thanks to the figures of jenna beasley there was one bathroom to every 6000 people. So we debated on wait til 6 for the shuttle to take us to our bus or wait in line for the metro. We found a fast moving line for the metro so we took it. There was finally light at the end of the tunnel. We met more canadians for Obama, a couple that said that this trip will be the one they tells their kids about. How interesting that people in other countries are so invested in our government. How was it that our president came to be the most powerful man in the world? How was it that I was born an American?

We finished the day off with a shuttle ride with mohammad the craziest morrocan I've ever met. Dude just yells about everything. And went to dinner with celeste and the wtiu crew. No cameras just friends.

Rest stop in illidelphia

2009-01-22T10:40:00.001-08:00

I am at a rest stop in phillidelphia aka illidelphia. Its 4:23 am. This is a place I think I would like to visit sometime and meet danny devito. I am in the most gross bathroom only being comforted by a non bumpy toilet and also the song jenny I got your number. Who can forget the number to that girl, right? 8675309ieieion.

Obama time

2009-01-18T16:30:00.001-08:00

At work a sorority approached our program with an opportunity for the kids to enter in an essay contest to go to Washington DC during the inaugoration. About six kids are going to come. I am on the bus waiting to leave. I'll be blogging and eventually vloging the whole trip. I'll also be twittering snippets of fun as well.

I'd like to take a moment as well to speak about my current thoughts and impressions about this historic time.

I followed very closely the election not only because of the historic meaning it held with women, African American, and Mormon canidates running but also because of the perilous economic situation surrounding our country. Becoming a fully self supported adult in this time is more than scary and doubtful. And I along with many Americans have felt frustration mixed with fear and also compassion for our nation. And we all feel invigorated with hope for our own recovery. And yet with this hope has lingered doubt with regaurd to the currant administration. The beautiful thing is that this is all about to change and we feel it is because of president elect Barack Obama.

Somebody answer this for me.

2009-01-10T22:26:00.000-08:00

Why did the homeless guy with severe turrets decide that outside our house would be the perfect place to spend the night? It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.

Mom and Me

2009-01-10T13:10:00.001-08:00

When I was a goodly four year old back in 1989 my mom and I finally broke out on our own as a single mother and child. We moved to the west side of Kalamazoo in these apartments that everyone just called "Village". I do have strong memories of times before we moved in there but my most vivid memories definitely start around this time. I helped my mom pick out the only car she ever owned independently of any other person. It was a red Geo Prism that topped out at 85 mph. (In '97 we tried to sell it in garage sale and the only offer we got was for 25 dollars.) Her boyfriend at the time helped her to install a tape player late in the winter of '89-'90. That summer I remember riding with her in the car with the windows down going to labamba to get burritos the size of my head and then to the tanning salon where I would flirt with the overly tan and blond employees. One named Tammy gave me a birthday present that year, it was a toy policeman set, with gun, cuffs and a badge. The number one jam that I always wanted to listen to that summer came from a Reggae singer named Shelly Thunder. If you asked me who my favorite singer was that summer I most likely would have said her (or Bonny Rait, we listened to a lot of her as well). And so for your listening and viewing enjoyment, here is Break Up by Shelly Thunder:

Shelly Thunder - Break Up
Uploaded by UniversalMusicGroup

Eating like batchelor

2009-01-05T21:03:00.001-08:00

Some people don't know this but the dude I call dad is really my step dad and I remember when my parents first got married he still ate like a batchelor but just had my mom make everything. The two meals that he ate the most were a bowl of Raman crushed into soup with ritz crackers and strips of fried balogna and the other meal was two hotdogs sliced the long way, lying side by side on a plate with a slice of cheese melted on top. Then he'd squirt ketchup and mustard on it, no bun. I tried it a couple times, not my thing. I only thought of that because my parents stopped eating meat recently. They still eat fish though. They say it's for health but all the fish they eat is fried.
The end.

Tread Carefully in the blogosphere.

2008-12-30T21:09:00.000-08:00

People love to blog, I love to blog. Its my chance to say what's on my mind. There is some strange limitless feeling that it has. It could reach anybody. For example in January of this year one of my earlier entries, my friday night lights fan fiction was read by a moderately famous comedian and he got offended and I felt really really bad. Click here to relive this painful experience with me. Other than that, I'm not sure who else really reads my blog, I know Sean does, and maybe a couple others pop in to peak every now and then. Its really a humble blog, but are blogs really humble? Not according to Joel Beasley. And he's right. There is nothing really humble about a blog. Its an excuse, and our good brother joel beasley will second this, to say "hey world, look how interesting my life is", maybe he firsted that and I'm seconding it. Anyway, I have a blog and in recognition to my teenage sister who just learned the difference between pretentious and precocious, I don't feel the least bit pretentious telling you how oh so interesting I think my life is. Its so interesting in fact that instead of living it up with riotous living this very evening, the night before new years eve (the eve to the eve if you will), I am in my apartment alone, reading blogs and writing one in the process.

Have you ever just hit the little "Next Blog" button on the top of the window? Its reallly really reeaaaalllly lame. It just sends you to a different blog randomly, and I thought tonight, that this could be a fun activity. I could hit "next blog" button and then laugh and chortle at all of the quarky lame blogs, I could even guffaw at the supreme lameness. And I was dissapointed. They are lame, but not funny lame. Here is a list of the randomly selected blogs I viewed until I could take no more.

1) Bearded Brewing - This blogger from Minneapolis has a blog that is sort of about beer but not about beer at all, just a lame blog.

2) My Birdy Blog (An Ohio Lady's Bird Blog) - Just pictures of morning doves, those are everywhere, she didn't even write about them. Lame. (sorry if this is danielle christiansen's mom's blog, but its lame)

3) Xeneizados (La Web Del Campeon) - I was enticed by the prospect of a spanish blog even though I have no idea how to pronounce the name of it. Despite my excitement it was just soccer pictures, way to not self-stereotype. Lame.

4) Prejeto Camp - Brazilian, about some sort of camp for pop music? I don't read Portuguese too well, I don't know, but here's a picture!

Lame.

5) Mhychha87.blogspot - You got me. Its in some language like turkish or russian, or Islamic. Maybe its well intentioned, but does anybody else see the "A" word screaming out in this graphic before anything else?

sort of awesome.

6) Coverstory-a.blogspot - Again, another language, this time in sandscrit or some other whosiwhatsit language. I don't know how this writing is even legible, even in typeface, and yet even they can't get over our dashing president!

7) Liulindid.blogspot - CHINESE! ARGH! And about investments! I felt like I was trying to stream episodes of The Wire from the internet. Can't understand you! Go back to your country! white pw'r. There was a photograph to clue me in a little bit.

The file name is ArgBill2.jpg, which means that this was this chinese person's second attempt at making George Washington look like he's rolling over in his grave, which means that the chinese are clearly laughing at the terrible state of the us dollar and gloating about how much they owned us these past couple of years. Dear Santa, how come we have to wait a whole 'nother month for our president?

So it seems that blogger has taken me around the globe to the various useless blogs in existence, can we get back to America please?
Blogger: Why sure young man, yes we can!
Now to number 8, which had the symbiotic benefit of my eyeballs for a whole two seconds.
8)southmainstreetantiques.com - That's right a crappy antique mall in the heart of Anderson, SC that uses blogger as a host for their website. South Caroline, ground zero of the Civil War, nothing says America more than selling old junk.

Thank you blogger, and HAP-PY NEW YEAR!

A Charlie Brown Christmas.

2008-12-26T22:00:00.000-08:00

I feel like I need to preface this entry with telling you my two pet-peeves. My number one pet-peeve is having things on my bed before I go to sleep. I don't want anything put on my bed, I just want to jump in without having to clear it and be about my business. My second pet-peeve is putting laundry away, it takes forever! but I always do it because I hate having clean clothes on the floor and can't remember a time in my life when I've left clean clothes on the floor, maybe that's my third pet-peeve and there in lies the paradox. My point is, I left home from Christmas at my parents early so I could sleep in my own bed, spreading out couch cushions on the floor just wasn't cutting it for my back, so I come home, its now past 1:00am and I forgot that I left my apartment in such a rush that I threw my laundry on my bed thinking that I would be coming home in the day time and could deal with it then having a splendid rest and Christmas vacation. Now you understand the state in which I am writing this blog entry.

I watched a Charlie Brown Christmas this year twice in an attempt to figure out why I identified with Charlie so much this year. His concern for commercialism affecting his outlook on the holiday spirit and his search for true friendship and selflessness. This is a difficult quest and I feel like I'm at the point where everyone blamed him for ruining Christmas for buying that measly little tree. Perhaps I've been feeling this way since I was about 16, it was 2001, 9/11 affected my family in a strange way and I got a pair of jeans and two of the ugliest shirts I could never bring myself to wear. Every year seems to be somewhat similar. The commercial value of the gifts I receive affecting my thoughts of the intentions in which they were given. I think that those who give to me are trying to do their best, and its only my own selfishness and commercialized paradigm deteriorating the meaning of their gifts. I try to curb myself of this wicked thing, but again this year has become the Charlie Browniest. As the excitement of my siblings opening their new Xbox 360 and Guitar Hero and new mp3 players I got charlie brown crazy eyes just watching them, which was the subject of my previous entry. On Canada's Boxing Day, two of my sisters came over. They live in Indianapolis. My nephew also came. One sister got tons of awesome gift cards that are useful to her and my other sister who is still in high school, the precise age I was when I got the jeans and two ugly shirts, got a speaker and CD player set for her iPod and a 10.3 mp digital camera! My big gift this year was a toaster. Yeah that's right, a toaster. And I just bought a toaster like a month ago. The problem with getting a toaster is that it completely over shadows the other gifts I got. (which were Johnny Dangerously and Season 1 of 30 rock) OK, totally good gifts, sure, but no matter how old you are you can't stop yourself from comparing gifts. All the kids got DVDs and video games a plenty to cancel out Johnny Dangerously and 30 rock, so all I'm left with is a toaster that I don't need. And I feel rotten to the core for being so selfish and jealous, but this is what commercialism and the whole spirit of giving has done to me. I have come to expect each year that gift that will truly keep on giving, one that I see as just awesome, I don't want something I "need" I want something I want, something cool, I want a digital camera! Mine's from the stone age! And the LCD monitor doesn't work. But not a digital camera, that's just a metaphor. I gave good gifts this year too. I only wanted three things, a good pair of headphones, since mine broke, a decent mouse and mouse pad, that's all, and now you know why I feel so rotten, because I'm 23 years old I can buy myself those things and probably will next paycheck, and I theoretically don't care about commercialism, I believe its more important to give. Shouldn't my gift be that I gave my sister a clarinet and my brother the coolest cartoon to grace television (original ninja turtles) and to one sister the complete works of Kafka and to another a guide to the toddler years and to my mom a vegetarian cookbook and dad a basketball coaching book and I painted their rooms. That is all a very high retail value, and I got a toaster. And I deserved one good Christmas, in the past 7 years of learning the value of giving rather than receiving, or rather the past 7 years of the incalculable anticipation, excitement and expectation behind each red and green themed paper covering only to be dismayed. I deserved to end this year in crescendo after a grueling and trying año in defeat.

And now I type alone in my brisk room, to a lonely audience, facing a lonesome new year with no dear heart in existence to usher it in with and nothing but a toaster to show for it. Now before you feel the urge to scorn me in my comment box, don't you know self-deprecation when you see it, can't you see the self-discipline and chastisement? This is not self-pity, this is self-scorn and detestation for having lousy thoughts and feelings. I shewed gratitude and love to those who gave and felt shame for my thoughts of selfishness. I felt even worse that I was the one who bought a cheap toaster some two months ago negating the perfectly fine gift my mother bought me. Is this a mental manifestation of my postpartum with the wonder years? I feel much like our Mr. Brown who said in his final act of desperation, "O, everything I touch gets ruined!" The vicissitudes of Christmas joy have beset me, I am reminded of my lonesome and fallen state, and await the TLC shoddy little trees like me need, knowing already that it exists all around me. I leave you with this:

(47 Minutes Later)

The restlessness of this state of mind has kept me up into the late hours of the evening, I am unsatisfied with such a cynical view of this season and determined to shed myself of the heavy weight that selfishness tends to be. Ever so often a TV phenomenon is able to reach a universal family audience and open their eyes of understanding. I am reflecting now on the time that was shared with those I love so dearly. What a perfect occasion. I have a profound love for my family and gratitude for their well being. The incessant questions of when will I find a wife and start a family no longer penetrate but are had in good fun. The toaster is already becoming like the bald headed doll my grandma got my sister charity when she was nine years old that even included a brush and comb. I wish I received no gifts, they do nothing but taint the experience of family sharing true time together. Its as if Linus himself has come down my chimney and spread tidings of great joy and my meager tree has been dressed and trimmed and a children's choir has sung the chorus of angels. What could this TV sensation be that could change an escrooged heart like mine? I present to you:

Merry Christmas everyone.

It's nice to still have kids in the family on Christmas

2008-12-25T10:39:00.000-08:00

My younger siblings got a xbox360 of their own with guitar hero and it was a little bit like this:

ok, maybe not that awesome because they didn't realize there was another xbox in there but it just reminded me of it.

Merry Christmas again

Make: Merry, it's Christmas!

2008-12-23T22:36:00.001-08:00

My roommate Dixon MADE: a little electronic christmas card and aesthetically it needed a little help so me and our new friend David Stith decided to put our artistic minds and hands together to MAKE: this the best christmas card ever!

If you asked me if I watched dragon ball z when I was a kid, I would have to say yes I did.

2008-12-22T23:25:00.001-08:00

a couple of stories here that I feel like need explaining. First off, I am not really a fan of the anime, never truly hopped on that bandwagon and I'm sort of glad about that, but if you go back to around 1996-97ish on saturday morning at 6 am, you would probably catch me watchin some dragon ball z acting it out. I didn't quite know what I was watching, all I knew was that these people with big ears, pointy hair and bow-tie mouths had special powers. That's all that mattered. And then my freshmen year of high school they started showing it regularly on toonami and I was then able to re hatch this gem from my tweenhood. Anyway when they stopped showing new episodes and started showing whatever the name of that other anime cartoon was with the dude with the white hair and pointy ears I said forget about it!
so now, its been 8 or 9 years since I've watched the show and I'm doin' my thang, takin a shedunk, and I've got my hipod streamin vids from youtubes. and I decide to type in dragon ball z in the off chance that someone will pick up my hipod and look in the youtube app only to discover that I've been watching a bunch of dragon ball z clips. Then I discover two things,

1) Dragon Ball Z Movie - Looks good in a Mortal Combat live action movie kind of way or that one karate show that used to come on saturday mornings on FOX kind of way, oh what was that show, it wasn't this one. I dont' know, if somebody figures it out leave a comment. (p.s. end the pretentious aspect ratios!)

2) My second discovery and probably much more important discovery, is the Dragon Ball Z rap made by either Spanish dudes or Argentinians judging from their accent. I really hope you enjoy this, because in the song they rap about the show to the T, I mean, these dudes are fans of the show.

Ok, got it. Dude goes by Porta and is from Barcelona, Spain. Here is my assessment of rap from spain, still not as good as french rap but the beat is better than reggaeton but reggaeton has better flows, (its the Mediterranean accent of the puerto ricans that does it).

Fell in love on Vimeo

2008-12-22T22:58:00.000-08:00

You know its a sign that you've been INternetsing too much when you get your first INternets crush. And mine is the girl who drew this cartoon:

Story from North America (FULL VERSION!) from Kirsten Lepore on Vimeo.

If ya'll want to check out more of her things click here. She is just cute as a button. And you know I had to get her on the facebooks! woo-woo, that's that tail pipe whistle, woo-woo!

Adobe and IU

2008-12-16T00:45:00.001-08:00

So my fellow students at iu are frantically downloading the adobe design and production suits as adobe and iu have worked a deal to allow every student to download them for free and I have cashed in. For most people, they probly just want photoshop so they can put themselves in pictures with lil Wayne or cover up some of that close up hair face (Sarah palin). But for me, I have a feeling that this is going to change my whole program. I am a digital art student and pretty much have need of nearly every adobe product but have only been using the more common programs like photoshop flash and dreamweaver. Occasionally I'll get down with some after affects but for my sound and video I've been using final cut and sound track pro but I have a feeling that will all change now that we are getting all of this stuff for free. Because why would adobe strike this deal without ensuring that the future of the industry is using their product? They want to be the industry standard and sabes que I sort of do too! Because check it. You can send the files you work with in and out of each program without rendering. That saves probably hours of time and increases flexibility with what you can do. Now I don't know the difference yet between premiere pro and final cut but the interface is sort of close and as hard as it is to part with final cut man if adobe starts giving their ish to other schools everybody is gonna come out knowin nothin else. For me, I hope my department changes it's course. And for everybody else on the school that gets it for free, depending on what you are going into you might have opportunity to use it in presentations or visual instruction. I think teachers and business men could really use some of this stuff. I mean personally I prefer a webpage presentation to a powerpoint and people can get to it easier after your done. So in short I think that my program is going to expand because we might be one of the best routes to learning all of this new software even though they've talked about workshops and what not. But seeing as iu is the first school to do this I'm just glad the cosmos brought me here.

At the Banneker again

2008-12-15T19:04:00.001-08:00

Sittin here at the Banneker again waitin for 8:30 to role around listenin to kids argue about who farted and some beats I made in garage. Man they's some stanky booties.

the best find ever!

2008-12-14T01:48:00.001-08:00

so today my roommate devin and I went to the goodwill because we thought they were having their 50% off store wide deal and guess what, they weren't. And when I thought 2008 couldn't get any worse. bam! I find this:

you can't tell what that is you say?

I'm going to let everyone in in a little secret.

2008-12-05T21:09:00.001-08:00

Alright, this is a little embarrassing but I still watch old episodes of the oc. I know what you're thinking, "you might as well try to become a rapper" and I've thought of that too. But we all need our distractions. We need to vedge out in front of the boob tube. That's why celebrities exist. They also exist for us to have examples on how to lead our lives. Is there a name for that? If not there should be. Watching the oc is like watching melrose place mixed with how cool I thought I was in high school without a girlfriend as hot as any of the girls in the show.
Sabes que You know what? My high school experience was very similar to the oc accept it sucked and was in Michigan. Now if you are still with me which if I were you I would have stopped around the melrose part and skimmed the rest but if you are with me still I'm going to draw upon some of the similarities.

1. I listened to a lot of music that I thought was some sort of unknown subterraineous type stuff but sabes que I didn't know better!

2. I had a serious infatuation with one of the most beautiful girls in school, the only dif is that I never got her.

3. I transferred schools and lived with my rich aunt and uncle for the last half of school, but that's more like the fresh prince of belair. (I watched that show last night and summertime came on the radio today)

4. I punched out tons of jocks. Ok I choked a guy once, chris davis, he reminded me of old dirty bastard and was a fellow jock.

5. My aunt and uncle had tons of parties on the weekends and all of the neighborhood parents always got hammered. (that one's kind of true but instead of newpsies they were soccer moms) do you know what the difference between a newpsie and a soccer mom is? Lipstick from target.

6. I made drawings of the girls I liked and put them into comic books (recommendation: never do that)

7. I had to save my girlfriend from O.D.ing in tiajuana, she shot my brother in the back and then I carried her dead body from a car crash. (ok, the only girlfriend I had in high school was better than me at dance dance revolution, and that's sort of saying something)

Hmm well I think that's it and that's all, I listened to a lot of phantom planet in high school as well so I was kind of lame.

And if you are just now tuning in, I was just telling everyone how awesome I was in high school and how glad I am that I am in college now and don't draw comics of girls anymore and have a really hot girlfriend in the art department and don't stay up late on friday nights watching old episodes of the oc. And this just in, my life is gay.

Alone on this cold apartment

2008-11-25T23:04:00.001-08:00

Well it's thanksgiving time and as usual during the holidays I'm stickin around town. My family is here, I have no car and my go to friends are gone.

That's kind of a new phrase, go to friends, I feel like I've lost a few in recent months. Things happen you know and sometimes things don't go how you expect. Like you get into it with someone or maybe you try to push a relationship but it's not right or maybe it's somethin that goes on between two friends and you're caught on the periferry and you feel like you lose a go to friend.

It's a little limiting to want some human interaction but not want to deal with anyone you know. It's like when you're hungry but don't know what you want so you go to the kitchen and open every cupboard and come out with nothing.

But that happens sometimes. I remember in high school when my family was moving around so much. I remember feeling trapped inside my room as if I had died and became confined to a tent. My only friends in those days were paper pads and pencils.

I'm sittin' here listenin to some Gangstarr

2008-11-16T14:26:00.000-08:00

The song "Moment of Truth" is really hittin' hard right now. I mean the jam itself is enough to really move me, but more than that, these lyrics are just gettin it. let me put this link up right here.

2008-11-15T21:37:00.000-08:00

I Don't Wanna Go To School from Torlando Hakes on Vimeo.

2008-11-10T08:55:00.001-08:00

Freshly popped popcorn is one of my favorite smells.

The End

Free At Last!

2008-11-05T11:25:00.000-08:00

"Free at last! Free at last! Thank God All Mighty, we are free at last!" Those were the words that ran through my heart on the night of the election, receiving the results that Barack Obama is the president elect of the United States of America.

I could not suppress the tears thinking of the children at the Benjamin Banneker Community Center who now have an example and a leader. They have a role model who takes care of his family, who is educated and articulate. They have a man who can say "I did it, and so can you." They have a guide who has been where they are. How many of these kids including myself whose father was never in the picture, whose mother worked all day to provide food and all night to make it, all day to allow them to be in school, and all night to help them to do well in school. Whose dear dear grandmother helped to shape them into the people that they are and who they will become. I identify with President Barack Obama, I believe in President Barack Obama. I believe in responsibility and integrity and honesty and feel proud to know that we have a leader who embodies those attributes.

After the election last night my friends and I stormed the streets and paraded with our fellow supporters up walnut and down kirkwood regardless of social groups, we were united in our joy for change and for the light that shines so bright at the end of this eight year sub tunnel. We believe.

This morning I had to grab every newspaper I could find, I can't wait to frame them and put them up on my wall in my home for years and years to come so I can show my children and my grand children the greatness of history that has transpired. They will bring the copies into their classrooms to show their classmates the artifacts of the content of their text books. I will tell them all about my first hand experience in history while they sit on my knee.

We Are Free At Last!

Yes I love technology

2008-10-30T14:47:00.001-07:00

Just to let everyone know I just found an application for my hiPod that lets me make a blog directly from my hipod to my blog yessir. That means I will be non stop blogging, yes I will.
I don't think I have anything imparticular to say today nothin more than the fact that I am wearing my taboggan on top of my head so that a little bit of the top poofs up. I always remember kids in my childhood doing that with normal hats but I couldn't because my head was too big.

My new vid entitled Looking for Yellow

2008-10-23T16:30:00.000-07:00

I don't know if this precursory note has any thing to do with the video but maybe I will be able to tie it in, in a way that is communicable.

Today I went to go see Barack Obama speak in Indianapolis, and of course he was so well spoken, very articulate, a little professorial at times, but most of all, dreamy. I wouldn't say that the crowd was that hyped up about the experience, I mean, he was about an hour late and we were all standing for about three hours before he started. But when he started talking about the issues of education and jobs and health care, I really was reassured as to why I am voting for him. What else reassured my vote? The thought of John McCain. The more and more I ponder the idea of the "market will out" the more I don't believe it.

The thing that spoke to me most wasn't what Obama said but it was the conglomeration of people in the crowd. I saw a mom who looked to be upper middle class and a typical white person, as Barack might say, with her daughter, a four year old little girl and then I saw a black mother, perhaps middle-class at or around, with her daughter the same age. And the white mother saw the black little girl and said to her little girl, "go say hi" and she sheepishly did. I recently read a study about a couple of sesame street segments called "visting ieshia" and "play date". Each video had a child over a different race playing in the home of a friend who was a different race. Studies of the videos indicated that children watching felt that the children in the video were comfortable in their friends home while the parents were not comfortable with the visits. This is not because of the acting but because of the viewers idea of how their own mothers would react to a similar situation. At this rally, that was not the case. I also saw another pair of mothers and children one white pair and one black pair. These pairs were obviously friends but the neat thing here was that the black mother held the white little boy up in the air so he could see above the crowd while the black little girl cleaved to the white mother for warmth and perhaps protection from strangers she did not know. My thoughts draw upon Dr. King's vision of one day seeing little black boys and little black girls holding hands and playing with little white boys and little white girls.

I think that children who grew up in times of television revolution where they were shown that diversity is a beautiful thing and that friends can come in all shapes and sizes has shaped the way that the public views one another now. There are other reasons sure but I do believe that television is one of them. This is why I am so fascinated with tv and why I am interested in making videos in particular for children. Which brings me to my new video Looking for Yellow. In this video we have my little brother Myles going on an eye-spy search for the color yellow. In this video I've thought about all of the various meanings of the color yellow, according to theory, culture and society. I think culture is different from society in that, yellow in culture tends to be a symbol of celebration but society it is a symbol of caution. In theory it is a symbol of joy and happiness and I relate all of these meanings to a young boy searching. In the end he finds it within himself which is something that I believe. Happiness comes from within and as I wrote in my last video project, "the key to happiness is choosing to be so"

I hope you all enjoy.

You ever have an invention and then it gets invented?

2008-10-19T08:40:00.000-07:00

When I was about 10 years old I invented xm radio, but because I was ten and to this day have no idea how xm radio works I was slow to make it a realization. I also invented rollerblades with shocks in the wheels and a short period after inventing them, they to were produced and sold world wide.

Two years ago, working in Dominoes I had an amazing idea. Web cast karaoke competitions. It was going to be huge, I even had a guy write a karaoke player for me so I could put it on the web. Well myspace beat me to it with MySpace Karaoke. And its blowing up. And further more I personally cannot stop watching these videos of regular people at home. I feel like Ducie and Pee Wee would be all over this.

*to catch the link you'll need to open it up in firefox, and macs can't install the recorder which sucks.

Poem, A

2008-10-09T17:04:00.000-07:00

One fly mammy is worth two not as fly mammies
I saw one walking so I pulled out swagger like sammy
Sosa can't speak good English and so can't I.
But she made a point of contact with voice and with eye.
"I like your fro" said she. I replied "I like you"
Dumb dumb diddily dumb dumb doe doe do.
I had to text sean a tell him I was hollered at.
He said "you didn't put game on her becuz you ain't got no swagger"
And that is a direct quote I ain't making that ish up
If the world was made of water and I was holding it you could say I dropped the cup
When does this chance come to me, not since nineteen ninety never
Have I lost my chance at a fly mammy like that forever?
The world may never know...
The world may never know...

You might share my sentiment more if you have served a state side mission

2008-10-07T16:52:00.000-07:00

So some people don't know this but Glenn beck is a Mormon convert. Some of you may have just lost a little faith in the Mormon church, some of you may be thinking alright rock on! But let's face it, none of you are thinking that. As for me? I love brother beck! I think he's great. I don't agree with a word he says on tv but I still love brother beck. And this is why. Brother beck is the kind of member that you want to bring on exchanges with you as a missionary. And like I said you may not completely get this post if you weren't a missionary for my corky church and culture, but brother beck would be great. Brother beck is hard to schedule for an appointment though, he's super busy, you might get him once or twice every two transfers but when you do get him it's awesome. And here's why. With broher beck you'll teach one of three options. A person who isn't as quick as the average person and so they just agree with everything he says or a person who is of reasonable intelegence and may even watch brother beck's show and so they just love this lesson and the principles are taught clearly and understood clearly. And then there are the ones that are relatively informed people on social issues but they are extremely liberal and brother beck, bless his heart is biting his tongue the whole time trying to avoid a political dicussion like the plague and he probably won't be able to fight it. Oh and there is one more type I forgot. That is the person who tries to argue against what we believe but don't really know what they believe and so brother beck is just making them look like an idiot because he's so annoyed by their ignorance. See, brother beck's attitude is completely dependent on the person who is getting taught. If they are quite and simple he is relatively quiet and rather calm for him and speaks on a rather basic level speaking of feelings and things that make sense. If they are resonably intelegent he speaks on their level and jokes around and is somewhat fired up in a good way about this lesson. If it's a crazy liberal you can tell he is frustrated and would like nothing more than to let the lady have it. And then with the dude that wants to bible bash brother beck is letting him have it. And then the ride back home is great because then you get the brother beck advise and commentary. If it's the first person he'll say well elders I hope she comes to church and reads but I get the feeling that she didn't really get it and was just agreeing to agree. Then the next one is, what a great family, I bet you they come to church and read. And that dad was a pretty smart guy, they'd be good members. The bible basher gets the, I wouldn't ever go back there again elders that guy is an idiot and all he wanted to do is bash, don't tell me you know what I believe better than I do. It's those kind of people that realy piss me off. Pardon my language elders. Then the liberal lady is the best because then you get to here all about what he really thinks about current events. He won't talk about his personal position around non-members because he doesn't want them to think that his political beliefs are what the church believes but to the mssionaries he will tell it all but it's not like the missionaries really get it cause they don't watch the news or read the paper. Maybe I'm of my rocker but I would do what it takes to get brother beck on an exchange.

OMG, what did this mexican just say?

2008-10-06T11:50:00.000-07:00

Sometimes in order to reaffirm my blackness I make an "it's ok because
I'm black joke" (even though I deemed them not funny anymore
on this very blog) and sometimes instead of getting an "oh, it's Ok/funny
because he's black and it's true" reaction, I get an "OMG, I can't believe
this racist Hispanic would say something like that" reaction. I realize
that my new facial hair growth is a primary cause of my "look kinda
Mexican or some kind of Hispanicness", it's a trade off that I chose and
a man has to make decisions sometimes. When these unsure reactions
take place I feel somewhat tempted to say "oh no, it's ok because I'm
black. It's just a joke on social stereotypes, incomplete statistics
and embelishment of media portrayal. I'm not really a racist Hispanic."
But that explanation is just pretentious.

oh ok

2008-10-02T09:29:00.000-07:00

this post is brought to you today from the most stank ahh restroom on campus, in the fine arts building. Vegan doo doo is the worst.

I think I have figured out the source of why so many religious people are republican or rather why republicans are so pro-life. Back in the day when George h w bush was a senator he was against a law prohibiting abortion, which sort of makes sense, I mean isn't the idea behind conservativism that you deregulate, give choice to the tax payer and allow each man to practice their beliefs according to their desire? I mean that has to be why so many Mormons are republican because they believe in a society that is different from the rest of America for the most part and comming from the Utah perspective have a welfare system that works far better than the governments and so why would they want the federal government infringing upon a sound system? Ok so Mormons are covered but Utah has a whopping four electoral college votes so how can you get to a group that has more power but won't vote for your party? Adopt one of their beliefs. Remember how I said that bush senior was against regulation? Well that changed when he was vice president for Reagan. The theory was that by forming an anti abortion belief for the party that you would divide the overwhelmingly democratic population of Catholics who live in new York new England Michigan (electoral vote money) and get some of them to vote republican. Getting catholic support was important too because of the cold war and the fight against communism (I.e. Poland) and because of the kennedy's getting them was tough. But what it did do was make the rest of the country see the republicans as saintly and with values. Ironically enough, al gore when in the senate did not support abortion, he and his wife tipper(a strong believer in censorship i.e. The tipper sticker) were "pro life" but that changed when he joined the clinton ticket which was of the centerist mind set and vying for as many woman votes as feasable.

And that's what I think about when I'm takin a shedonk.

allinallitseemstanah, you don't know what you got til its gone.

2008-10-02T08:14:00.000-07:00

today I began training for my new job at WTIU which was awesome, and as I was walking back to the institute I saw my good old friend and previous boss, joey baird. Since I had no business at the institute I decided to change course and walk with joe. He was on his way to the business school as he is doing his mba. it was because of the mba program that we stopped painting together. working with a guy for several years, seeing them everyday and them being the only person you really talk to for eight hours a day, you really get to know them and appreciate them as a friend. And then when you end that relationship for whatever reason (leaving on good terms of course) you miss them and when you finally get to sit down and have a good conversation and catch up, it is one of the most refreshing things ever. Joey Baird is one of my top five best friends of all time and I include some of my family members in that.

Total Piece of Junk

2008-09-30T12:50:00.000-07:00

Hmmm, ok, I, I, I just don't know what else to say about this map I found on google images. This is really funny. I especially love how they outlined the entire state of a majority the states but for Michigan they just covered Detroit, Kalamazoo, areas around Lake Eerie and then on up to Flint, which I feel is an accurate representation of Michigan the upper peninsula being completely disregarded as usual. Got to hand it to the map maker. Total piece of junk, funny.

Whats hot, whats not

2008-09-30T08:13:00.000-07:00

I really don't like these v-neck t-shirts that all the hipsters and asians are wearing for men, the are gay.com.

And as I was walking to class this morning, a young fly mammy passed in front of me on the right and I'd be lyin' if I said I wasn't checkin out that swagger. And then as she was walking up the steps to the area in front of the fine arts building where the huge naked fountain is, she busted her self. Just tripped over her flares and flip-flops.

white girls stay losing.

It's Always Sunny in Bloomington

2008-09-25T15:15:00.000-07:00

Walking to school today I notice that the morning air was cool and a light breeze refreshed my every step. Eventually this breeze would have become a chill hadn't it been for the sun lending its warmth. It was such a pleasant balance that it caused me to take special notice and to think about the meaning of those small moments when you recognize those kinds of things. Later in the day as I was walking back home I notice the weather again. By this time the sun was high in the sky and had taken over the cool wind. Now I found myself uncomfortably warm and yet the very gentle breeze would come along to whisper calm coolness over my body. And such was my day.

My critique didn't go so well. I just finished my first ever stop animation video and was really proud of the way it was turning out. I thought for sure that it would be a pleasant experience for my classmates and teacher; but of course it wasn't so. Some had a hard time following the story, some thought it was self explanatory and so they didn't talk about the story and instead just focused on the quality of the stop motion. It was some what of a blow, but I started to think about what things I would have like them to talk about and why they didn't. My first thoughts were that the video isn't really intended for an adult audience and maybe they thought that the story line was a little too basic and then started searching for a hidden meaning or symbol but either didn't think that it was a strong one or just thought that there wasn't one. I guess I'm not torn up about what people thought, I'm just a little frustrated about what wasn't brought up or what wasn't interesting to talk about in class.

The theme of the video was friendship or fellowship. A few little critters are playing and then a little panda comes up and sees them playing but is really hesitant about joining in on the group, but then the little dudes go over to him and invite him in. The panda doesn't understand some of the things, he gets a little scared by a dog that ends up being friendly and then they introduce him to their leader which is a large version of them, somewhat of a buddha if you will. The idea of the tall figure being a deity is important because the story then becomes a representation of my conversion to religion.
My conversion really did follow this story as I recall it. I remember being such a timid and unsure underclassmen. I had absolutely no friends and was so worried about going up to this particular group in my school who seemed to have some special quality about them that I wanted to be apart of. I distinctly remember being in the cafeteria as a freshmen and getting my food and not knowing where to sit and so I would just go outside to a pay phone and call my mom and talk to her for a while. One day as I was getting my food I sort of walked and waded by this one table where all the kids that I wanted to get to know were sitting and then this girl that was in my spanish class nodded me over and I sat down. There were things in their conversations that I didn't really understand but was somewhat eager to understand them. Throughout the next couple of years they began introducing me to new things and explaining their religion to me. And much like the little figures in my video trip sometimes, sometimes my friends would stumble, either in their explanation or in their following of the things they professed, but they were redeemable.
I'm not alone I think when it comes to having a hard time with happiness during high school, but being introduced to God and being befriended really helped me find happiness and that is what the large figure represents in my video. He says in it, "The key to happiness is choosing to be so." Sometimes happiness is harder than just making a choice to be happy, but sometimes I think we fool ourselves into thinking that it doesn't involve choice and is left to chance. There are things in life that make us unhappy and choosing to avoid those things brings happiness and vice versa, the things that do make us happy are things that we should choose to do.
Its funny, I showed the video to a couple of people that go to church with me and the first thing they thought of was the missionary and fellowship aspect of it. And thats the breeze that comes when the sun gets too hot. Knowing that your friends support you and appreciate the things you do. Critiques are a dime a dozen and they are normally harsher than they need to be and they normally miss the meaning of what your trying to get after, but I don't think my work is supposed to be scrutinized. I don't mind that it is, that's fine, it makes me better. But sometimes I think I just want to hear whether someone likes it or if they don't. Its like being liked. You just want to be liked and you know you wont be liked by everybody, that's why you're friends with those that like you.

2008-09-24T20:35:00.001-07:00

When I was a kid my grandma would get very creative with the cakes that she would bake me for my birthday. One year it was a baseball diamond with little baseball guys on it. Another year it was race cars and one year it was dinosaurs. I really liked dinosaurs like most boys do. She also used to embroider and she made a picture of these different dinosaurs and each one was a different color and underneath the dinosaurs were the words: Tory's Room. Tory was my nickname that everybody called me until around the fifth grade, almost all of my extended family still calls me that including my grandma. My grandma also used to make my halloween costumes. She made me a really good red power ranger costume and also a gargoyle. Most of my costumes were centered around my favorite tv show at the time. Hands down, the most favorite costume she ever made was a ninja turtle costume. The shell was amaizing. I think I fell asleep with gum in my mouth and got gum on the green pajamas though. Its ok now because I don't fit them anymore, but at the time it was kind of a bummer.

_________________________________________________________________

The other day I woke up and looked in the mirror and thought, "yikes, I look like I should be in a commercial". I think my early morning thoughts were a little premature to be thinking of doing a commercial as a low brow work, because if I had the opportunity I would think that its the coolest thing on earth. But truth be told I kind of have that commercial guy thing going on. You know the guy that needed milk for his cereal and then tried to milk a bull or some ish like that. If you can't catch that reference, I was lookin like a black wookie.I've been gearin' up for the fall getting back to my Michigan Lumberjack roots, that reminds me, I need to buy flap jack mix. That self same day which was monday I had to bring in objects for my drawing class and I forgot so I started collecting whatever I could find on my half hour sojourn to class. I felt like that crazy homeless guy that carries a briefcase and wears a suit always trying to start up a business proposition with someone. Later on that day I saw a bike accident. Two cyclists collided and bent they handle bars crooked. It was a little weird because you don't normally see that kind of thing, but its like, campus is so busy you'd think it would happen more often.

Things that happened at the end of the night.

2008-09-18T17:23:00.000-07:00

This is why I pay such good attention in my children and the media class and why I did so well in spanish my sophomore year.
(to clarify, that's the teacher)

Also as I was walking home I saw a thin construction worker wearing underarmour as a t-shirt
I saw a black dude that looked like Al Roker and he gave me the forward head nod
and I think I saw one of bro. tibbs' pigeons lying dead on the sidewalk.

The Bannekids...

2008-09-10T19:14:00.000-07:00

The Bannekids are different from other kids. I'll just say that. You really have to treat them different. Not different as in bad, but just different. For example, if a young white boy has a bowl cut and glasses, you know that you probly need to be really nice, kinda corny, and patient when he can't catch a single ball you through at him. And I'm not generalizing because there are plenty of children who happen to be white that are really good at sports, in fact I remember when I lived out in Portage, MI there was a particular white kid named Michael Stangle who was the best at sports, now when we got to highschool norrix still beat portage northern twice (see picture) But Stangy as we called him was live at sports and he had the bowl cut, which was popular in '95 but he didn't have the glasses combo, and all I'm sayin, is that when you got the glasses, bowl cut combo, sports aren't for you, take my good friend Jim Amos for example, not live at sports. But if you have a hair cut like this (see picture) do I really have to say anymore? I mean if you got a landscape, a mountain landscape, and you can't see it but there is a sweet lookin star as well shining down on what appears to be the beautiful Lake Tahoe, if you got all that, you are live at sports end of story. And quick shout out, that is Kyrese and we're gonna try and get him on our team this year and get that Kyrese and Myles winning combo, and of course his mama Shalon hooked him up on the fade, girl's an artist.

So I had that picture in my phone for a couple of days and been meanin to get it up, but today! Oh my goodness today! was some for real madness. And this involves a kid by the name of Raequon, who is the inspiration for a character in my comic book (see picture)that I'm workin on with my boy sean, a.k.a. dixon McGlintok, not to be confused with Michael "Dixroid" Dixon or Michael "Bigalow" Dixon.
So Raequon came to Banneker today and there was an activity. The activity was designed by the Health Chick Daniella and was about the food groups and what you had to do was Trace the body of your partner like so: ok, simple task, that was an example made by me and my co-worker nick, alright. So all the kids did this and then they had to identify certain foods of the food group and draw pictures as to which food item helped which part of the body. And here in lies the mistake, allowing the Bannekids to take part in this activity.

So without further ado, here is Raequon's body:

Yeah, its times like this that I really love my job. He should have gotten in huge trouble but I could not stop laughing, I fell on the ground and then one of my co-workers sent the picture to another co-worker that was at home and she responded, "who the hell did that? It looks like a DICK!" To Raequon's credit, he said it was a piece of chicken, but yeah right, that boy knew what he was drawing.

Bannekids Stay Winning!

2008-09-05T21:16:00.000-07:00

Remember when we were kids and we were forever makin up games? We didn't know the real rules of a game so we'd just make somethin else up? Remember Curb Ball? The one where you had to throw the football across the street and try to hit the curb?

Black people know what I'm talkin bout.

Well the Bannekids were at it again, reinventing all the white folks games as usual.

Are you ready for this?

Imagine eight kids, four on a team, divided by a half court line, one goalie for each team, a setter, and too wing attackers...all with.....wait for it........tennis rackets in their hands! Thats right its TEAM TENNIS!! (see figure1.0)

figure 1.0
"G" stand for Goalie and "B" stands for Bannekid.

Now, say what you will, but this was a sweet game, I mean, with the exception of Arthur Ash, Venus and Serena and Kit Ramsey, black people don't really play tennis, which is why we had to invent our own game. It started like this, earlier in the day Smoochie, a.k.a. Jaquan found a tennis racket and a ball, but couldn't find another racket, to his dismay he was not able to play tennis with anyone. but later in the day we found another racket, in fact we found eight rackets. One was a racket ball racket, but Kyrese was workin' it anyway. And we had two balls, not enough for four games to be happening at the same time. So we decided to make teams. And in our gym there are these gymnastic mats that are mounted to the walls on either side of the court behind the basketball rims. These pads serve as a safety preventative for about 95% of the time, but for the other 5% of the time, they are goals. Soccer, team hand ball, they look like goals to me. And so once again they became goals, and you had to hit the tennis ball on the mat, and the goalie and other players on the court had to stop it from happening. Now we didn't have a net in the middle, but that doesn't mean you couldn't have one, but it was understood that you could not cross the half court line. We just knew for some reason that that was against the rules. You have to understand that this was a functioning game, with a set of rules that were just known, and not predetermined. That's why black people are tight, our natures are so pre-calculated that we don't really need to coordinate, because in a weird way, we already have...It's a black thang. Now here is an interesting thing, and this was a rule that happened to be less set in stone but some of us were doing it. If the ball goes dead, the goalie can pick it up and serve it, but if it goes out of bounce a player has to set it to another player and the other player hits it into play. Also when the ball is in play you can set it to other players and it doesn't matter how many times the ball bounces on your side. You also rotate as in a game like volleyball, so every player will become a server and goalie, wing man etc. So there are a few volley ball influences in it too, but unlike volley ball, you can hit it more than once in a row.

This night really captured to me what its like to be a kid and being creative and inventive. And how kids are sometimes into involving more people if they think that it would be fun or if they like each other, if they don't like somebody they will probly exclude them, like Preston was excluded from our football game. Poor little white boy.

To America, the people, the five people who read my blog and Aziz Ansari

2008-09-04T20:04:00.000-07:00

Tonight John McCain just spoke to his acceptance of the republican nomination. Was it a good speech? Yes. Was it personal and genuine? Yes. But he's not my candidate.

I feel like in my last post in attempts to say that its annoying when people don't give real reasons for not liking someone, I feel like I actually did that myself. So allow me to deliberate.

First off, while politicians promise changes, there are certain things in america that wont change within the period of a very long time. One thing is people. A person tends to change but people tend not to change. And so keeping this in mind, lets go over the issues at stake and I will offer my opinion.

The power of oration is being down played by the opposing party. The great leaders of ancient Rome were often sent by their families to Greece to study under the great masters in preparation to being a political leader, as was the case of Julius Caesar. A powerful speaker holds the power of communication, which carries with it the ability to persuade, appease and inspire. With the office of the president, we look to him to tell us how to be, he is an example, not only to us but for us to the rest of the world. Communicating to us the desires of the rest of the world and country in a way that we can agree to it unifies the thoughts and opinions of the people. We speak to each other to connect ourselves to each other. Persuading us to follow the cause of America provokes action. Persuading the leaders of the world to get on board must first come through diplomacy, which begins with communication and persuasion. Barack Obama has the power to inspire people to do good. No one disagrees with his ability to speak, yet the opposing party dismisses this gift as a viable way to lead a country. Think for a minute. When hiring a teacher or professor, when looking for a spokesman for any committee or organization, these people are necessary to represent the institution to which they are appointed. As a literary reference, Moses appointed Aaron to speak to the people as Moses himself was slow of speech. We believe in a democracy in which the people are at the helm, we need a spokesman to convey perfectly, that which the American people decide. The people decide in a democracy. Tonight the republicans at the convention applauded and gave 27 standing ovations to John McCain, sometimes being moved to do so, but more often than not only to attempt to match the uncontrolled fervor of the DNC.

The Hail Mary. Sarah Palin is the Hail Mary and it is clear that the republicans are up to their usual smugness in bluffing their support. Sarah Palin was mayor of her home town of less than 9,000 and current Governor of Alaska (the closest state to Russia) She's been Governor for 20 months. Which is not a convincing argument for executive experience. I was a mission leader for nearly that much time in my mission, and I was not anymore prepared then than I am now to become a mission president. As far as I'm concerned, the question of experience is nullified by the lack of "executive" experience of all four. The real question is of course judgment. Sarah Palin's judgment can be assessed by her acceptance of the vp nod. She has a Bachelor's in communication/journalism which having left the pursuit of a communication degree I can tell you that its the kind of degree that is supposed to teach you how to figure out how to do any job that requires a four year degree. Kind of like anthropology or sociology. Its interesting but there really is no field for it. She did minor in political science from University of Idaho. Sarah Palin audaciously put herself on the same pedestal that Hillary Clinton supports put Hillary. The difference here is that Hillary may have deserved it, while the snide obliviousness of what a vice president does and listening to Ron Paul enough to actually say that you agree with some what of the things that come out of his mouth, sarah palin was an unknown person riding on the coat tails of, not Hillary Clinton, but of the weakest of nitwit followers who stopped caring about politics after Barack won the primaries. Its ok women, mormons did the same thing when Mit didn't make it. I will say this. The republicans freaked out so much about McCain's long bomb that they couldn't do anything else but to knee jerk react to any criticism of Gov. Palin and then say well she has done this. Its as if they are making her out to be some savior of the republican party, I guess they wanted one too. This is Sarah Palin's progression, PTA, City Councel, Mayor, Governor. Not an education in political science from Columbia, not a Harvard law degree, not dedicated service in a city that is plagued with poverty, gang violence and drugs. Not four years in the Senate. Sarah Palin's speech really wasn't as impressive as people were making it out to be. Sure she looked nice and she was able to come within one million viewers to Sen. Obama, but it really wasn't that great. All she did was take cheap shots at Barack's Acceptance speech. She was a hater. She was a real hater. And again, right wing radicals are doing everything they can to act like they don't cringe at her acceptance.

Sarah Palin is against abortion and for the second amendment. This is why a majority of republicans vote, for those two reasons, and I'm sorry to those republicans who are reading which are one maybe zero, but while you justly feel that you care about more than those two things, the rest of your people don't. Being a democrat in a severe republican culture I know that those are the two most common things that come up. That and gay marriage. But here is the the problem. Republicans believe that major decisions should be left to the private sector and local governments. And not on the federal level. So while Sarah Palin says no abortion in any condition, not even in cases of rape, incest or health and life of the woman, she also believes that its up to the states to decide on that thing. Same as Bush, which is why nothing has changed. Second amendment, well its part of the constitution, and that is not going anywhere. The difference is if you want to hunt with an ak47 you might have to wait for proper precautions to be made to make sure that you are not a gang member or some kid with severe social and mental problems. Otherwise, if you go about it the right way, much like mexicans have to go about the right way of getting into our country, you'll be able to pepper your wild turkey's and pheasants with bullets of the semi-automatic variety of course. ahh, I'll never forget about the week in high school when we all had to get our bags searched before going to school because an assault rifle was found in a car parked on the road right next to the school parking lot, all of the prayer circles around the flag, boys and girls crying to their maker that they could go to school without being afraid for their life. In the end, abortion is still around, second amendment is still around and states are deciding about the whole gay marriage thing. States choosing just as the republicans wish. The problem with letting the private sector deal with their issues is that it has not worked in 100 years. That is a plan for the rich to get richer and for the poor to get poorer and more violent.

John McCain says that Barack Obama's plan is to raise taxes. But he leaves out the part about Barack cutting taxes for everyone who makes less than $250,000 a year, which amount of money makes the "middle-class" range a big range. If you ask me if you are anywhere from 90,000 and up, you're rich enough. You see a company is going to perform at maximum efficiency. If I need ten employees to produce enough product, I have to pay for ten, I can try to get away with nine but production won't be high enough. Now say that I lose some of my personal income tax break, do I fire somebody so that I can still get that amount of money I don't need and then force my employees to work harder than they want to so they quit? Do I raise prices? Or do I keep production up and my employees bring more of their cash home and so does everybody else and so more people buy my product which makes me increase production and make more money and of course increase production means lower prices. hmmm. Yeah, that's why I'm a democrat. The opposite is, I'm a business owner, I get a nice tax break which I buy my daughter a smart car with, and I use the same amount of employees as I need. I have no incentive to give them more money because the economy is so bad that they wont be able to find a better job, and I don't need to increase my production because everybody who would buy from me is in debt and broke. Yup, that's why I'm not a republican.

So I've read both educations plans from McCain and Obama, and this is my understanding, feel free to correct me in my comment box. McCain plans to make schools competitive by helping good teachers to do...um by making it so that good teachers...uh...So that they... by helping bad teachers to find a new job. Thats it, don't help them to be better teachers, just let them go. Here are some other things he says he'll do to incentivize better teachers. Schools he says, should be able to compete for the best teachers and be rewarded for being good, k and if the school isn't good enough then the parents can chose to change schools. aggghhh, in the words of Barack, its not that he doesn't care, he just doesn't get it. I said earlier that people have a real hard time changing, and I hate to say it so bluntly but, black people are some of the hardest to change. In select cases like my parents, the parents will get involved enough to make sacrifices for their children's education, but they are the exception. Fairview Elementary School here in Bloomington, IN was dangerously close to being closed this year. And not, surprisingly enough because of NCLB testing incentives. Attendance was the problem. In the school district there is an 11 absence limit. If a child misses school 11 times or more they have to repeat the grade. Bloomington only being five hours away is close enough to chicago for a drive but far enough that you have to make the trip worth while and these kids go up to chicago all the time to "see family" the parents take them out of school cause they have no one to watch the kids and don't bring them back for a week. If the poorest and yet most fruitful communities within cities are following these trends, they will only increase and the parents who are the problem are not going to simply chose to bring their kids every morning to a different school. But like I said there are exceptions, I work with two women who have gone out of their way to move to a zone where the school is a better environment, its very difficult for them, but they do it. There is no indication that McCain feels NCLB failed, in fact he feels like it served as a good research tool for elementary schools. Research showed, that NCLB doesn't work. The current state of schools he, no doubt, blames on the teachers unions. Now I don't agree with teachers unions, I think they are stupid, but much like abortion and guns, they ain't goin' no where. Teachers are largely democratic and they believe in their unions. I remember being in school during a teacher's strike, they still taught, but they were on strike still, I didn't quite get it. But the point is they aren't going anywhere and so the question is do you fight against it or do you work with what you got. Well Barack has a plan. First off, quality of schools is dependent upon the education of the teachers. Unfortunately, becoming a teacher is a plan B in america. Teaching doesn't pay enough, so you go to school to become a lawyer, but when you can't pass the LSAT, you teach government, thank you Ms. Kemp. The people who actually are smart enough to be lawyers actually become them even if they would prefer to teach. Barack plans to recruit a new army of teachers by helping aspiring teachers first, to pay for college and then by helping them to afford being a teacher. This is how you increase competition, by making the competitors more competitive. Also to help the schools is an added emphasis on early and pre- education and head start programs. Providing funding for college preparation programs like upward bound. And of course by inspiring parents to invest in the education of their own children. And believe me when I say that the weakest link of our educational society will believe Barack Obama.

Well I've covered a lot tonight, and yet I only scratched the service. I mean, I really only scratched the aura of the service. But I think my main point of this evening was to provide details and specifics and examples of why Obama is the way to go. And the funny thing is, that most if not all of the people who read my blog are fellow democrats because there are five of you and you are all democrats and that includes Aziz Ansari, who wants to destroy me.

2008-09-03T10:03:00.000-07:00

we are in the first week of classes and of course filling out several different personality sheets. If I were a teacher I would not use them because then the students have to fill out one million of them or at least four to six of them. Today I fill one out that asked me "what got me interested in drawing?" and I thought, man, I don't know!, what makes a baby interested in walking, just got to. Got to like Mugatu. Thats all I'm sayin.

Here's another thing. I hate saying what year I am in school, because i don't think it accurately describes me. I feel like class rank can be a little too defining of a persons character. Its like, ok, what year are you, sophomore, technically. But sabes que, I'm 23!!!! And I'm with it. My peers are not undergrads either. I mean, I'm ok with my stance, I'm just not ok with the general implications behind that title, like I said, I'm with it. But the other day I was kickin it with some grad students, I should have lied but I was like yeah I'm a sophomore, and then later on one was like "I don't like when undergrads are late to class, they act like their time is more important than mine and its not." Now look, I understand that many undergrads do not understand or fully value the institution, I get that, but its bold to say that one person's time is more valuable than another. Especially when that time doesn't necessarily have strong implications on the lives of others. Like the president's time is more valuable than mine, the missionaries' time is more valuable than mine, God's time is probably more valuable than mine, if He even does operate in this man equated thing called time. But if you are another student, regardless of rank, what you are doing is for you and some would argue for whoever your education will affect in the future. Its the same importance though. Now this person, I liked this person, I felt this was a good person, I have no problems with this person, I even had a reasonably good time with this person, however, however, I'll give it the "obama" however....... oh nevermind.

Final thought. I can with confidence say that I know me. I was walking down the street, thinking about what other people could be thinking about. I do that sometimes, and I do believe that the outside reflects what's on the inside. And I think that what we think about attests to our level of comfort that we have in living with ourselves. Think of the phrase, "how do you live with yourself?" How do you live with yourself? Me, I have a pretty good time with myself, I feel like I can entertain myself in my own mind, or with one of my various hobbies. I am interested in the things that interest me. All in all I'm a pretty cool dude.

After thought. I try to follow the politics. I have been following this stuff since the 2000 election. I was 15 then so I think that's either around when people start thinking about it, if they're with it. Maybe its a little early for the average teen, cause I remember thinking about my friends like, why is this not interesting to you? Anyways, I hate when democrats and republicans bring up points that are irrelevant. Like, hunting and being old or eloquence not being enough. Look, figure it out. And don't bring up dumb points. I really don't have time to pontificate on this idea, but its like this. I have been hearing a lot of people saying, well I just don't like either of the candidates. Argg! Don't say that, because you shouldn't not like somebody when you don't know them. I don't know john mccain, If I was sitting down with the guy, I'm sure he's kinda like a grandpa and how could you not like a grandpa, but he's not my candidate. And if you don't like Obama, then you simply don't pay attention. Its very clear that you watch more of either vh1 or disney channel, all the time.

2008-08-19T18:41:00.000-07:00

today I had a memory and that memory was the time that I was over at my grandma's house when she had the pool and I must have been about 8 years old. I told her that I had an idea for an episode of the power rangers. So, we decided to write it down and send it off. On that hot summer day I dictated and paced on the pool side and grandma wrote in short hand.

People I consider funny, part 1

2008-08-17T20:23:00.001-07:00

gilbert godfrey is funny

hola gente

2008-08-13T17:22:00.000-07:00

I am really having a hard time finding the frickin' scanner on this computer, oh I figured it out, let me attend to that now..............................nope, aint workin'. I hate when things don't stinkin work. That happens to me sometimes. no sierve. no funciona! sabes que no sierve!!!!!!!!

This leads me to ask myself a question, what do i do when stuff doesn't work?

I think the first thing I do is swear in my mind grapes. I do this because I try to avoid vocal swearing unless it is for the purposes of comedy or cussing out a stupid baby, and by baby I do mean an actual infant. But this is all softcore cussing.

Then, I say, alright then, do I really care? And normally I don't care. This is because of the inherent nature I have that tells me although I have great potential in life to do something great and better than anyone else, its still just easier to live at my mom's house and do nothing about it.

The third thing I do is wait until the last minute until someone says I need this by tomorrow at noon or else...
I don't see this as procrastinating the solution to my problems but rather an act of planning and scheduling. I have an allotment of time given to me. Many of you may have a similar allotment, I don't really know the national average, its somewhere around 24hrs a day or something like that, I'm not that sure though.

Then I fix it.

So thats the key to fixing your problems, it involves a lot of not caring and not scheduling.

life as a black man.

cousin weezy

2008-07-31T21:35:00.000-07:00

So here we see cousin weezy. This weekend my family and I went on a family vacation slash reunion and it was good. We took a three state tour starting in michigan and we saw all my white kin first. and that was cool my aunt uncle cousins and grandma she is such a cute old lady who has a hard time not crying when she sees me. they are doin good. and I saw my boy sean and we decided to make a new comic under the pen names of Killer Schmeldon (me) and Dixon McGlintok (Sean) It will be pretty cool. We are going to have the fate of the world rest on the shoulders of people who don't give a sh*. That's right black people. As I went back up to my home town and then to chicago and michigan city I realised that living in bloomington has made me sensitive to how many black people are out on the streets at night. I remember driving down town kalamazoo and saying out loud on accident, "there are too many black people outside." I said this to my best friend sean who is black. in fact we are both black. I remember a few months ago i went through this whole like black crusade, but not in a black crusader kind of way, about representing my race and all that, but I think bloomington is making me white bread mayonnaise. I tried to subdue my tongue and stop myself from saying such tonterias but then as we drove through chicago, my dad said the same thing. and I think he was even more uncomfortable than i was. but the way he said it was more of a fear of what they could do to us mixed with a pity and wanting to help them get off the streets, but mine was more of a "why are there so many black people out here?" kind of way, much more racist. well maybe its the same but mine is more of an eighties racist which is not quite politically correct but not censored either and my dad is more of a late nineties to now. I really shouldn't be calling my dad and myself racists but its not like uncle ruckus or anything - I'm really tired right now. I love black people, and I love being black, I just wish they wouldn't push their babies in strollers at midnight. Our chicago trip was great. We visited my black kin. We saw several aunts and uncles. i think my favorite was auntie elaine who is big weezy's mom. She been going through cancer treatment and lost all her hair. She's crazy though, she reminded me of yoda, but in a very endearing kind of way. She used to be a singer and an actress and used to tour with a band singing doowhop. Her favorite wizard of oz character is the lion, which is what I played in high school. Later in life she married a white man named joe. Joe has a cool accent. When he tries to say "through", it comes out "tru". He showed us a way to get to our next destination without going tru the ghetto. we left there and met another uncle who is old but still rocks the dreads, we ate popeye's chicken at his house and watched hairspray on tv. I really couldn't get over that john travolta was in that fat suit. neither could I. When we got to michigan city, IN we went to the beach and built my brother and sisters' first sand castle. and then we made one of my sisters a mermaid tail in the sand. I got sunburnt. Then we went to Ryan's for classic american buffet food. My grandma loves that place. We saw her and lisa. lisa is her roommate. They've been roommates for forever. My grandma loves me very much. then my crazy uncle bobby came in looking head to toe like lil wayne. and bobby is crazy, because he is 42 years old and actually tries to pass himself off as lil wayne. so now I'm passing him off as lil wayne to basically anyone who is naive enough to believe me. which will include almost every kid at banneker. suckers. call me a wanksta now. when we were at ryan's one of my dads childhood friends randomly came to ryans at the same time. his name is aqua and he's bigger than both my dad and bobby, but they said that when they were kids that they wouldn't let him go home and they would make him spend the night and steal his bike and chain it up so he couldn't leave. I just thought to myself, if that was now, he would have just punk'd them but back then big kids were always push overs. Aqua. The biggest difference between these three amigos was a lot, but could be represented by their clothes. Bobby was dressed like what he thought lil wayne might wear. Aqua wore a button up shirt that had the appearance of some kind of silky polyester with a design on it and some shorts. The kind of the thing you see most forty year old black men wearing. Then my dad wore a white polo shirt tucked into his blue jeans all form fitted and his black new balance casual walking shoes. He's completely suburbonitish. but you know what, he owns it. and thats what matters. like take me for example, no one wants to admit that they are a black hipster. but you know what, black hipsters are cooler than regular hipsters, cause they aint snobby about it, and its cause its kinda like how there are white people who like to dance, but black people are just kinda better. I don't make the rules folks, sorry!

2008-07-04T11:09:00.000-07:00

last week I was asking some goodly youth of america what word they would use if they had to describe God with it. I asked this because generally the strongest quality that we see in God is the strongest quality that we ourselves posses. Sometimes thats good sometimes its bad depending on your feelings of God. One kid said unpredictable. I didn't know what this meant. First off is God really unpredictable? God has a set of rules that he follows and He pretty much sticks to those, if He didn't he'd be a changing God and if a changing God then a lying God and if a lying God then no God at all, cause God don't lie, ya dig? so what did this goodly youth mean? I mean, I know the kid is a believer, but why does he think God is so unpredictable and what in this kid's life is making him so unpredictable. who knows.

Gloomypages - concept for the sitcom

2008-06-30T10:58:00.000-07:00

Tired or Praying?

2008-05-29T15:57:00.000-07:00

I was out riding my bike today, which first off was not a choice, my car is broke, but then I remembered how much fun it is and that it only takes fifteen minutes to get from my house to campus so what then is the point of having a car? so I was riding. and as I rode, I saw a man, who looked to be in his late 60's to early 70's bent over set down on his front steps. He wore a white baseball hat and long overalls with a button down shirt underneath. He looked to be about 6' maybe, and big 250 lbs. maybe a little less. He couldn't still be in the work force but I suspect he was working all day in his yard. Work in the lawn is a reminder of responsibility and need. The lawn needs the old man and the old man needs the lawn. Need is something that can be forgotten in old age. Checking my phone for the time, it was around 4:30 and I wondered as he sat leaned over, elbows resting on his knees, is he just dog weary from the day or is it a prayer? I'd like to think that his silent and tired meditation was a prayer perhaps to God perhaps to the lawn, "thanks for the honest work."

2008-04-24T14:45:00.000-07:00

the video below is an animated short I did in an art class with flash, its to the song headlines by one be lo. I apologize for the jaggedness, this is a compressed version, I do have a more fluid version I will put up later on the youtube.

The McGuirks

2008-04-24T14:39:00.001-07:00

kids be wylin out!

2008-04-19T13:41:00.000-07:00

So I was at work the other day and these too kids were havin' a nigga moment. what is a nigga moment you ask? Well were you ever in school and you accidentally stepped on the shoe of a really hostile black kid and he tried to fight you for it. Or maybe you looked at a black girl the wrong way like on that episode of dave chappelle? That's a nigga moment according to boondocks. And I don't mean nigga in a racist way of coarse, but in a chris rock way in his stand-up routine about brothas v. niggas. so here i am at work and we're outside tryin to start a baseball game, but the field was occupied, so we were waiting and all the boys started to play fight and play smear the queer. I said well lets play a game with a more p.c. title or at least change the name of the game cause gay people don't like to be called queer. And one kid said, 'how about spay the gay'. Ok that didn't really happen, but I thought it would be funny if it did. Now we kept telling the kids to stop playing the game and to quit play fighting, I mean, all they want to do is DDT each other, but it always gets too rough and then they start fighting. So they ain't listenin' and I'm puttin' people in time out. And then I see out of the corner of my eye, two kids standin' each other off. I wish there was a button attached to an alarm or buzzer that alerted when a nigga moment was about to occur, I would have hit it faster than the time my shop teacher hit the shut down button when he saw a kid using the ban saw without protective goggles. Just as I said "Hey!" The younger kid pushed and the older kid punched. And then I suspended them both. The younger kid cried for like an hour at least, partially because he got punched and also because he was in serious trouble. But the kid had it comin'. He thinks he can get away with whatever he wants because his mama works there. He had been so disrespectful to me. But now, I think I have him where I want him.
When you discipline children, they live in fear that you might discipline them again, and so they are nice to you. And that's how I put the smack down.

I Am Mixed America! Face it!

2008-04-17T16:21:00.000-07:00

last night I spent 45 minutes boring black people to death with a powerpoint presentation at DePauw University. When I first arrived to the venue I could tell that the many black students there were probably more intelligent and more capable of delivering my presentation than I was but then again perhaps many of them were there so they could remain eligible for their step crew. Many of the dudes bounced it after the first twenty minutes and I think the more parched I became the harder it was to avoid adding -ed to an already -ed'ed word. Though these slips may have been freudian in nature I can't help but to chuckle that I would do something so blatantly stereotypical on accident. All in all I felt I held the attention of the elite and didn't seem to offend too many people with my ever changing views on identity. I did share a poem with the group that one gentleman asked me if he could have a copy and so this is for him. And for those mixed-americans who have lived too long in the oppressive society controlled and manipulated by the white man!

What will he look like?
With big lips and a small nose?
What will he look like?
With dark skin and straight hair?
You see, he’ll jump high and run slow
He’ll be smart but wont show.
Sure he’ll dance and sing, but it lacks that soul.
He’ll be patches of snow and he’ll be patches of coal.

He’ll be a zebra, an oreo, a skunk!

He can sit over there or he can sit over there
He can sit where he wants, but he can’t sit here

He’ll be a mutt hound
When he comes out.
He’s a checker board
Monochromatic, a rally flag and a cow,
Salt & Pepper,
He’s a key board, he’s an old movie
He’s a, he’s a house boy
That’s what he is…

(a baby cries)

He’s a boy…
He’s my grandson
He’s my beautiful baby boy.

2008

Have a good day!

I believe in riverdance.

2008-04-15T17:55:00.000-07:00

so here's a little story about how I was stood up last week and how I now believe in the riverdance.

a few weeks ago I went out with a girl who is quite possibly the girl of my dreams. She's beautiful, she's mormon, and she's mixed and it is the hardest to find a mixed mormon in indiana. There are now 2 to my recollection. So I got one date with her and it went fine. I feel where I lacked in looks (comparatively speaking) I made up for in devinere. (yeah, yeah, I'm the humblest guy I know, give it a rest.)

things went well so I asked for another date. she consented and I told her that riverdance was coming to bloomington and that I could commandeer some tickets. and they weren't priced too bad for students. (ugh, these loud girls just walked into this computer lab breaking my concentration, ugh) so anyway, I told her we could go and then I played it cool and tried to limit my calls to her, cause I'm a playa.

so then the day before I gave her a call to make sure she could still go. and I got no answer. so I texted, no answer. then later that day, I did the same, no answer. so I'm thinkin, dang whats up? she better answer cause I don't want to waste this dang ticket to the riverdance. now, I had been to the riverdance before in highschool and I knew it was the most amaizing show on earth so I didn't want her to miss out nah meen? so I tried again, no answer and at this point I'm thinkin, man Ima bout to get stood up.

so the next day I decided I tried to contact her too much the day before and that if she was going to call then she would call, if she wasn't going to come then, whatever dude, life sucks for me. so I'm at work and my boss asks me if she got back to me, and I'm like no she hasn't, then I leave to go home and then I get a little sad. now this is the third step in the grieving process

the grieving process

Denial, numbness, and shock
This serves to protect the individual from experiencing the intensity of the loss.

Bargaining
At times, individuals may ruminate about what could have been done to prevent the loss.
Individuals can become preoccupied about ways that things could have been better, imagining all the things that will never be.

Depression
Feelings of loneliness, emptiness, isolation, and self-pity can also surface during this phase, contributing to this reactive depression.
For many, this phase must be experienced in order to begin reorganizing one’s life.

Anger
Feelings of resentment may occur toward one’s higher power or toward life in general for the injustice of this loss.
Again, these feelings are natural and should be honored to resolve the grief.

Acceptance
Time allows the individual an opportunity to resolve the range of feelings that surface.

I stand before you a healed man, and it took a night and a day to go through these processes, however they weren't in the same order. This was the order of my grievance process:

anger
This is sometimes manifest in calling said problem a hoodrat, swearing under your breath like harry on home alone, giving up on girls and the universe and then committing to never be nice to a single girl again, never take them out, not even flirt but to become spiteful and non-sexual like pete.

denial, numbness, and shock
giving said problem excuses for example, well maybe she left her phone at home, maybe she forgot to charge it the night before, maybe it fell in the toilet, I mean she wouldn't just ignore me right? she's not that kind of girl? right???

bargaining and depression
these two processes are merged together in a sob session with your mom. A conversation might go like this:
"I don't know what I did mom? I mean I didn't even call her that much, I don't think I was annoying?"
"how many times did you call her?"
"I don't know like two or three and a few texts too?"
"well don't call her again."
"how am I supposed to know what happened? It must have been something I did. If only I called on tuesday, instead of the day before, three days is too long to wait."
"well, if she doesn't call you then its her that is missing out."
"Thanks mom, you always know the right words to say."

acceptance
acceptance can only come when you find a replacement chick to make sure your ticket money doesn't go in vain, and it might be wise to pick a friend chick that will feel obligated to buy you steak'n'shake after the show.

so thats what happened to me. and you know what, it turns out that the chick that stood me up, really just completely forgot about thursday and who knows why she didn't answer the phone on wednesday. My commitment to shun the female race is still in affect until a hot lady wants to have my baby then I will say "unshun".

now as for why I believe in riverdance, the moment we all have been waiting for.

about a week before I went to riverdance a friend of mine who shall remain nameless, said she didn't like the idea of riverdance because she heard from a relative that it wasn't real. allegedly a recording was playing and a malfunction occurred and they kept dancing but the sound stopped as if they were pretending.

this led me to become very skeptical going into the show and I began to scrutinize what I was seeing. and I almost lost faith in the riverdance.

when I watched I thought to myself "how is a five piece band really making all of that music sound exactly like the recording." "this stage seems too small and there seem to be too few dancers to produce this much sound" and so on and so on.

but then I thought, you know what the sound is too responsive to not be produced by the actual motion. extremely responsive. with the dancing and the instruments and then with the singing, I heard the lead make three mistakes and she went flat one time.

there was a platform on the stage that echoed the noise of the feet. there was, it had to be.

but here is my final consensus. I don't doubt that they maybe were being enhanced by a recording. There did seem to be more instruments then what you saw. but the platform and mic really seemed like it produced a lot of amplified sound. and there was no way the tap dancers were faking it, I saw the shinny taps on their feet.
and further more, its a lot like believing in santa claus or the tooth fairy. they exist, just in a different way, but you do get the presents and you do get the two dollar bill. its like keeping the magic at disney land. if you ask any character at disney land who their boss is, they will tell you mickey mouse himself and if you ask princess jasmine who she loves, she will tell you aladin and I believe her. If you don't go to riverdance believing, it will not be a good show, but if you do believe, it will be spectacular!

2008-04-03T14:22:00.000-07:00

I think things is lookin up for your ol' boy torlando. I haven't had any major calamities in a while and I'm kind of a happy dude. knock on some wood.

I've been preparing for this forty five minute speech that I've got to give at DePauw University in a couple of weeks on being a Mixed-American, I have personally coined that as the politically correct term, I know that some may not agree, but that is not my problem. And its cool because I have this spirit of I don't want to say activism but like I'm caught up in the civil rights vibe, but its like we all got our rights so, what's the problem, or what's the point of that. but its a different kind of vibe. Like black people got them rights but young black people don't exercise them, and I feel like there are too many who grow up and just don't realize everything that our grandparents went through to give us those. I mean there are a lot who do, don't get me wrong, but I feel like those people aren't raising a big enough voice. Thats my thing, I know there are so many intelligent people of our race but the voice isn't loud enough and I think that I have an opportunity to really evoke some inspiration to do that, through this speech. I guess its really caused me to start becoming more aware of who I am and where I came from and to not take for granted that I've got black and white blood in my veins, and to realize everyday that that does have meaning and its not irrelevant and its not a joke. I feel like sometimes mixed people become the butt end of a big black and white joke and i've been hearin and makin variations of this joke for over a decade and I'm a little over it, nah meen. its like ok i get it, I'm not all the way black, whatevs. I'm part white yes I know, I think we can all just get some new material.

THE McGUIRKS - "kids don't be carin'"

2008-03-31T10:07:00.000-07:00

Stack Your Chippers!

2008-03-20T14:13:00.000-07:00

Here is my new website I published for my art class, its a fine arts piece so start usin's that right brain o' yours. Its entitled "Stack Your Chippers!" (click on the question mark)

"Dinosaurs"

2008-03-18T12:42:00.001-07:00

"flowers are dead"

2008-03-18T12:31:00.001-07:00

"Car Chases"

2008-03-18T12:22:00.001-07:00

"Handles"

2008-03-18T12:19:00.001-07:00

miles of smiles

2008-03-07T13:13:00.000-08:00

um, this is a new comic I'm starting. its more autobiographical than anything I guess. I've got two more pages written, but I still need to draw them. its a little hard to see the words but if you squint you'll do alright. so hope you enjoy.

But they're soooooooooo comfortable!!!!!

2008-02-27T07:28:00.000-08:00

Alright, so I could clearly care less about doing a blog about some ugg boots, buuuuut there is a new off brand everybody, called EMU's !!!!!!!!!! and they are soooooo killer!!!!!! ok, no, sorry, that was...dumb

Here's the deal, last night I was chillin at the crib with my roommate and his lady, and she is an inspiring sorostitute and as such got a pair of them boots from the holiday gift giving extravaganza. And as it turns out, she has some killer glockenspiels for feet which happens to be my size and guess what! NOT SO COMFORTABLE!

As you can see I also tried the closest thing to leggings as well and it is not warm to go outside like that, but look what it did to my butt! Alright!!!! yowzas!

So what's the point of this anyway, no hay! (that's spanish for there isn't). I'm just showing off my butt and the fact that my roommate's chick has man feet.

ttfn!

Can your monkey do the dog?

2008-02-26T13:12:00.000-08:00

a while ago I was perusing the public library music selection back when I did not owe the library $21.89, and I came across a cd that I fell in love with: The Best of Rufus Thomas: Do the Funky Somethin

The reason is because rufus thomas looks exactly like my old shot put coach, Ricky Johnson a.k.a. coach trap. (photo not available, if anyone has one please hook a brotha up with a link!)

That is all.

2008-02-14T13:27:00.000-08:00

I am in class right now, not doin NOTHIN'

so for some reason I keep getting these opportunities to redeem myself from being a racist by being a black activist.

last night my sister came into town with her son and her mother. Her mom (michelle) was in a play down in the fine arts building. I think I knew that Michelle did acting but I didn't know she did it all the time. The only thing I knew about was this movie she did in the late nineties called Vacant Lot which according to my sister, who was about ten years old at the time, aired on BET.

so I decided to go to this play called "Sonnets for the Sistahs" which was a series of performance based poems that were supposed to elicit in black women a desire to search for a man that is good and hard working and not to settle for no "good for nothin' type of brothah".

My first question to my sister was why do you think they chose to spell sister with the "ah" at the end. To which she replied, "I DON'T KNOW!!!" I don't think she wanted to be asked a question that would force her to think.

My second question to the director was, are the poems actually sonnets or is that just a catchy title. To which she replied, "Some are."

As I watched what seemed to be a play about black women being on an unreachable pedistool and that all the brothahs in the world need to step up they game, I realized the central message, then like I always can't help but from doing, I said what I thought during the comment section.

Its like this. I applied the message of this play to Freakonomics, the book written by an economic professor from Chicago
so if you apply men and women to supply and demand you got freakonomics. The example I gave is if you were to take ice cream and say everybody in the world only wanted mint chocolate chip, then every ice cream shop in the world would sell only mint chocolate chip. If every woman wanted a good man, and didn't accept any less, then eventually all the men would change and adapt and become good men. Because men will always do what it takes to hook up with a woman.

The last sentance I said at the event was "then all the men would make themselves become mint chocolate chip" and then all of the woman did that simultanious group "aww". And that my friends, is game.

The most enjoyable thing about this whole experience was the audience. I don't know if I can go to a white audience play ever again. You know the stereotype of a black woman in a movie theatre, well imagine fifty black woman who all assume that because its a play that they can actually interact with the actors. It was kinda like when I went to the black church back in the day. I don't even know how to express how fun it was to listen to the audience. It was wild.

So anyway, getting back to my comments, the author really seemed to think that I hit the nail on the head and said something really profound. I guess what I'm sayin is, that if I were on the movie undercover brother and I was part of the brotherhood, than I would either be, "profound brothah" or most likely "light skinn'ded brothah"