“i’m mad as hell and i’m not going to take it anymore!”

Cool captured still photo for the Norwegian zombie flick, Dead Snow, above.
Click on the photo to read Hojo‘s review on it.

2:11am – 2:34am
I’m listening to… Nurses’ Apple’s Acre album. Consider me addicted. Going to see them tomorrow night at a house party in Seattle. We’ll see if they live up to the expectations.

Going to try to make this as quick as possible…! Tired. I went to watch “My Suicide” today with Rachel and it was pretty fucking bomb, I must say. It was unlike any film I have ever seen, and that is a fucking feat, man. It was super random and had a hodge-podge of little things… it was like a collage in film form, and as a full-length feature, took two and a half years of editing alone. It is about a boy who says he wants to commit suicide on camera for a school film project, and the repercussions of that. Really, really, good, and kind of interesting that the organization it stemmed from was originally a non-profit group that made PSA’s about stuff like teen suicide. So really, they began this project with the goal of stopping teen suicide, basically. I didn’t really feel like the film made me feel that negatively about suicide, though, but maybe it will make an impact on someone…

In other news, I ate at Serious Pie yesterday in downtown Seattle and fuck, best fucking pizza I ever had. Seriously. I didn’t know pizza could even be that good. Potato and rosemary and cheese. No tomato sauce. MMMMMM. Expensive, though. It was like $14 for one that was like, two Pizza Hut personal pan-sized pizzas or something.

Man, I’m tired. Last night there was an intense Left4Dead game, haha. Nerdy to write about but whatever. Essentially, the teams were me, Gymshoe (James), Takyn (Megan), and pubbie versus Sandmole (Pat), Plumridge (Josh), Loon (Jason), and pubbie. We were wondering if the teams were fair, and so, James switched with Jason… but then James was basically saying, well, that’s not much of a change since Jason and I are pretty much equal (not true), so really, we should split up the girls, because no offense, but the girls shouldn’t be on the same team. Josh and Pat basically said they didn’t agree with his sentiments, and I said that, “I’m pretty sure I could kick your ass.” So we left the teams as they were, with us two girls on one team. It was an intense game (I found myself seriously 2 inches from the screen at one point and my eyes have been way fucked up today), but we won by the skin of our teeth. Four points. Haha. But seriously. It’s like. Take that. Beeyotch. :L In the words of Pat, basically what James was saying was, “Let’s split up the girls… because they’re girls!” It’s kind of nice to be able to hold our own as the females. >P

Anyhow.

One last update.

I went to that movie today with Rachel and when I got back, I realized that I’d locked myself out of the house. Chris had been there when I’d left and Rachel had picked me up, but he was gone when I returned. After prying around the house perimeter forever, trying to find an unlocked door or an unlocked window, I finally resigned to having to borrow a ladder from our neighbor with the trampoline. This neighbor family with the trampoline are reallly cool and relatively young, and they have two kids who pretty much just jump on a trampoline all freaking day every day. I’ve only met them once at a BBQ that Marge, the former lady next door, had before she moved, and everyone in the town came. Trampoline neighbors were friends with Marge, but they are relatively ostracized in the neighborhood because their kids are outside all day, cuss, and I guess they smoke weed. But they’re like cool… and nice… so it’s kind of unfair. When we’d first gone to the BBQ, Marge had warned us that the neighborhood folk might judge Chris, Alex, and I because Chris and I have piercings, but that she had basically told all of them that we were decent human beings. Funny that such sentiments would still hang around in a relatively liberal city like Seattle and a relatively liberal neighborhood like Phinney Ridge. Whatever.

Anyhow. Trampoline neighbors saw me struggling and offered a ladder. They unfolded it and it was like freaking like, 16 feet tall and needless to say, quite unwieldy for me to wield. I caught it on their fence, then caught it on our deck before I could put it up to my bedroom window, the only open window in the house. Thank god I never close that thing, or I would have been sitting outside helplessly for two hours. It was hard to get the screen off, though, and I’m scared of heights, making it just SLIGHTLY nerve-wracking. At one point, the neighbor threw me a really dirty butter knife to use, and it absolutely did the trick (putting the screen back on was actually harder, though). When returning the ladder, I damn near took out the added-on portion of our roof, that is literally just being held up be a freestanding pole. EEK.

First for today: Learning how to take out a window screen! YAY!

stuff.

I’m listening to… Chairlift.

Went to drum n’ bass last night, which was cool. AK1200 spun, and he was a lot better than I’d expected. Tony is moving off to Hawaii for like a year, so it was kinda like a goodbye thing. Me, Lenny, Rachel, Mike (new roommate), and Lingo watched “Terminator Salvation” before that, which I thought was at least better than the last one. It was super corny at some points and the acting was bad (asides from the three main dudes… all the sub-characters were weak), but I thought it was interesting and good-looking enough. Partway through the movie… actually, at the very beginning, really, Rachel left and then never came back other than to pay me and then to leave

Afterwards, Mike went home, and Lingo, Lenny, and I went to TIG in Pioneer Square to eat. Split a LOT of food. Man, I feel like a fatass. Jennie showed up much later. Meow.

Then we went to drum n’ bass night at Trinity, which wasn’t particularly crowded, but was full enough. It’s so interesting to see the difference between the dancing in the drum n’ bass room and the dancing in the techno/house/breaks room, because it is always SIGNIFICANTLY different. People in the drum n’ bass room pretty much without fail just don’t give that much of a fuck, which is really dope.

After the event, though, as I was driving Lenny’s car around, Tony saw a fat girl crossing the street and rolled down the window and said, “Hey fatty,” which was totally rude and uncalled for. Kinda put me in a sour mood — me, being the only sober person. And then we tried going to eat in Chinatown but failing and then blahblahblah. Then Beth’s cafe where everyone else bought food and I picked at random pieces of food.

Tonight, Alex and I went to Malay Satay Hut because I wanted to purchase him lunch because I’d forgotten about his birfday. Yarr. YARRR. Brock and Graham wanted me to go with them to Folk Life, but I decided to just play Left4Dead. Simple pleasures.

drifting.

I’m listening to… Hotel Eden, Infected Mushroom.

It’s hard to update these days. Just kinda drifting through life these days. Updates in life include the following.

The awesome guitar player from The Horrors.

* Cliff wants me to be his art manager. TBD what that entails.

* I went to Sohaila and Joe Vollan’s art openings on Friday… I really liked Sohaila’s new stuff.

* I’ve come up with a tattoo design and am now pondering whether I want to spend money on such things, or if I want to spend money on traveling… always more inclined to lean towards traveling, but you know how it is.

* Left4Dead has been quite different and people don’t usually want to play much anymore.

* New roommate is well, quite different from most people I have associated with since I’ve been to college… and he reminds me very much of my brother at a younger age, with the desire for money, women, and well, not drugs, but still. He is also very… young… in his approach to life and approach to women. Hopefully being in Seattle will help he be less naive? Last week, I took him to an art walk, and there was a DJ man dressed up in drag, and Mike (roommate) was like, “What’s up with that guy?” and I said, “Wow, I understand, but if you said that to anyone else, that would be HIGHLY offensive,” and he didn’t see how it could be offensive. Just interesting.

* Went to see the Horrors and the Kills at Neumo’s on Friday evening, cept Rachel got sick and went to sleep in the car, so I left the Kills early, which is too bad, cause they fucking kicked ass. The Horrors really kicked ass, too. I got a couple pics below of the Horrors. They’re a good looking bunch of lads, and man, can the fucking guitarist play some mean ass shit, for reals. Lots of effect pedals and such, but totally fucking kick ass. I HIGHLY recommend that you go check them out.

* Parents came on Saturday, but I already wrote about that below.

* Swapping between reading Haruki Murakami’s After The Quake, a whole book of Lewis Caroll’s writings (just finished Alice in Wonderland… now onto Through The Looking Glass), and World War Z. All amazing books… all very different… but all separated in small enough segments that I can digest all three at once without much conflict in my brain (or is there)?

* Chris has been having people over for Dungeons and Dragons parties. The game is actually kind of badass, although I don’t personally think I can play because that shit takes so godamn long.

* Chris made an interesting dinner tonight for all the D&D folks, which consisted of Cream of Chicken, Cream of Mushroom, tortillas, green chili, corn… actually really fucking good, although I can’t say it seems all that healthy.

* Me, Chris, and Mahoca watched “Bill And Ted’s Excellent Adventure” yesterday, and I must say, it was fucking excellent. Stupid, but excellent.

* Oh yes, I’m pretty committed and determined to going to Burning Man this year; I’ve already purchased my tickets to Los Angeles and will definitely make it happen one way or another. Going to apply for low-income tickets… with the deadline being May 30, so I gotta do it tomorrow… because I’m low-income, right now, dammit.

* Infected Mushroom is coming July 3rd, and I am actually using Google Calendar to make fucking damn sure that I don’t miss it this time, since I’ve already missed them a couple times due to absolutely freakish circumstances beyond my control. And so it goes.

* Got caught up on some “Breaking Bad” with Lenny, finally, but we’re still a good five weeks behind. EEEP. That shit is SO GOOD.

* I also like this stupid reality dating show called “Daisy of Love.” Stupidly named, but it’s interesting. Mostly because I like seeing the people that go on the show and how their personalities are. I love reality TV. Not gonna lie. Granted that perhaps much of it IS fabricated, but it’s only fabricated to a degree. People are just so damn interesting.

* I met with one of my new writers, Chris, yesterday, who is a friend of Yair and Hojo’s… so that was cool. We sat in front and in back of each other for a good fifteen minutes, not knowing the other person was the other person (but suspecting).

* Got to try Trophy Cupcakes, which Tammy claimed was much tastier than Cupcake Royale. I’m not quite sure that it was, but it was good, true. That shit is expensive, though, them designer cupcakes. How can they charge that much money for a snagnam cupcake?!!!!

Alright, enough ranting. It’s time to do some more reading and go to bed.

…

Realization: How good I am at video games is directly correlated with how good I’m feeling at the time of playing said video game.

a terrible fucking day.

Today was by all accounts fucking terrible. Like seriously, terrible.

Let’s just say that Americorps is RETARDED and will not let me take any freelance gigs or make ANY semblance of money on top of their job, which pays me less than minimum wage at $949 a MONTH. It’s ridiculous. I can live off of that, plus food stamps, but I can’t save. And that’s not at all legit. Their reasoning? “The program was originally created so that Americorps VISTA members can understand the poverty of the people of the under-privileged communities they are trying to serve. WHAT THE FUCK. That’s UNBELIEVABLE. Like, as if everyone isn’t making enough of a sacrifice to put in a 40 hour a week job for like zero money and everything? I feel absolutely terrible to be telling the lady, my manager lady, that I potentially cannot do the job because I HAVE my own company, I do have freelance gigs already lined up, up the wazoo, etc. I would love to do both and to do freelance work on top of it, but it seems like they are giving me no choice. The regional state-wide lady today told me, “I just wanted to tell you [that you can't take freelance work] because the federal government WILL come after you.”

And initially, I was like, “Oh, it’s okay, I have my own business, but it doesn’t make money,” but that’s actually a lie, because I do make NEGLIGIBLE amounts of money, and if that is to disqualify me, or I’m supposed to give up Redefine to work a shit for crap job, I can’t do it. I feel terrible because my manager lady is very nice and has made many allowances for me (or proposed allowances), such as working part-time from home initially and being able to start a slight bit later if I want to go to Peru, but what the heck am I supposed to do?!!!! I see no other choice, honestly. And it sucks to have to be put in a position where I have to pick due to some stupid, outdated, ridiculously ridiculous rule that shouldn’t even exist in the first place unless Americorps is solely looking to hire big fat fucking losers, and I’ve been stressed out all day about it, and on top of that, I bought my plane ticket to Peru for March 25th to April 13th (and it would actually arrive the morning of April 14th), because the manager lady told me this morning that the dates of the orientation were the 15th to the 16th, and so I booked it, and later talked to another lady to discover that that information is in fact wrong, and the training is actually from the 13th to the 16th. So I checked with Vayama.com, who I bought my ticket through, to see if I might be able to exchange my ticket for a slightly later date, but that is absolutely not a possibility for any of the nearby dates before the 13th. So, there it is folks, I have a ticket to Peru, and even if I took the Nazi Americorps job, I’d be missing a day of training, which I’m not even sure they’d allow, and today is just a cluster motherfucking fuck of a day. For real.

And what’s worse is playing Left4Dead to relieve the day’s stress and being told what to do by people that are generally worse players than me. And either way, even if they’re better, it’s lame to tell someone, “Oh, you should have done this, instead,” in a game that has 10,000 potential hypothetical routes to take, and who knows what you would have done, and jesus, everyone make mistakes, and pay attention to your own shit and be better at your own shit and stop worrying about what other people need to do better, unless you really are WAY better of a player. MOORG.

And you know what the worst part is? The worst part is that I felt like I was completely in the right, yet, I apologized for being snappy. I read recently in an educational book that studied elementary school students that young girls are always apologizing for being strong, or being opinionated, and that young boys never do, and I can’t help but wonder, “Is that why I’m apologizing?” Part of it is that I’m just a big giant softie, but I wonder how much of it is because I feel like I don’t have a right to feel like that? Like I’m not entitled to get angry at someone else because there’s no way I’m better because I’m a girl? In fact, that’s how it really feels like most of the time with videogames. I don’t actually feel like I get much credit, and I feel like it is because I’m a girl. In Counterstrike, for example, I didn’t really demand credit, because I didn’t think I was all that good. Not the case in Left4Dead, though, as I feel like I’m pretty good in that, and better than most people, and consistently rank on the top of the charts on both teams. Not today, though, as my heart wasn’t in it and I was half cutting paper and half playing, and pissed anyway, but frankly does it all boil down to my being a girl that I don’t get credit? I wonder. It’s not that anyone’s saying I’m bad, I think, cause I’m not, but they’re certainly not saying good (other than Alex and Eddie, but they are homies).

During my Americorps and Peru woes today, Alex was saying I need to think things out more before I do them, because he is an extreme thinker, and I’m on the opposite end of the spectrum, and I kinda would have agreed before, but not necessarily wholeheartedly, but after today, fuck, yeah, I need to think through my actions more cause I’m a logical person generally, and especially when issues concern other people, but when things get exciting and I want to do something immediately because I have a good idea or want to have some peace of mind by completing a task, I end up not thinking it through, and today it all became glaringly apparent and really ultimately just kind of insane-making, and if I had just waited a day, or a few hours, things probably would have been a lot neater, a lot cleaner, a lot better, or maybe even a week, for even more goodness. But no. I’m dumb. The end.

And apparently, when I’m pissed off and riled up, I don’t like to use periods, because this whole entry so far has had like, around 30 periods, and that’s pretty few, considering this is the length of like, 100 sentences! Haha.

On a positive note, here is a painfully hilarious and painfully painful conversation with Rachel, like seriously.

***

rachel (12:14:15 AM): wow
rachel (12:14:59 AM): what time is it in canadia
vee (12:15:05 AM): wtf
vee (12:15:09 AM): canada is as wide as the united states
rachel (12:15:14 AM): haha
vee (12:15:15 AM): actually probably wider
rachel (12:15:20 AM): oh
rachel (12:15:26 AM): so
rachel (12:15:34 AM): same time
rachel (12:15:41 AM): I was just making sure
vee (12:15:47 AM): … -_-
rachel (12:16:08 AM): its weird how a diff country can have same time zone
vee (12:16:22 AM): WTF
rachel (12:16:23 AM): or something
vee (12:16:27 AM): i0t’s not weird at all
vee (12:16:32 AM): WTF
rachel (12:16:32 AM): fine
vee (12:16:36 AM): every country
rachel (12:16:41 AM): haha
vee (12:16:41 AM): that shares the same vertical axis
vee (12:16:43 AM): has the same time zone
vee (12:16:45 AM): om g
vee (12:16:47 AM): are you high or something
rachel (12:16:47 AM): huh
rachel (12:16:57 AM): haha
vee (12:16:59 AM): the west coast of the united states
vee (12:17:01 AM): has the same time zone
vee (12:17:03 AM): as for example
vee (12:17:04 AM): peru
rachel (12:17:04 AM): maybe
vee (12:17:05 AM): or chile
vee (12:17:08 AM): because if you go vertically down the map
vee (12:17:09 AM): its the same
rachel (12:17:15 AM): nuts
vee (12:17:20 AM): all vertically similar time zones share the same time
rachel (12:17:32 AM): that’s crazy shit
rachel (12:17:58 AM): forget this conversation happened
vee (12:18:00 AM): u must b high
vee (12:18:01 AM): lol no
vee (12:18:04 AM): going in my blof
vee (12:18:05 AM): blog
rachel (12:18:08 AM): I think my brain stopped working
rachel (12:18:13 AM): please don’t or ill end you
vee (12:18:17 AM): too bad
rachel (12:18:28 AM): I’m never IMing u again
vee (12:18:37 AM): lol
rachel (12:18:48 AM): u r a bully
vee (12:18:54 AM): lol
rachel (12:19:30 AM): boo
rachel (12:19:46 AM): I honestly don’t have a brain

NOTE AS OF MAY 2009: Actually, *I* am the loser. While Peru is pretty vertically-oriented compared to the west coast of the United States, it is not directly lined up as I had thought. Trujillo, on the west coast of Peru, is two hours ahead of the west coast of the United States. My mistake. Looks like I’m the idiot.