Life is a bit different w/ a 65" tv in the room because the tv is the room. Its like sitting next to that enormously huge "fat guy", listening to him breathe for an hour. You can't help but look at him and wonder how he got that big and why you are sitting next to him. The Hitachi is so big. We watched the Rundown last night. The Rock does lay the smack down on some fools. Now the movie is a good one, at least I thought so and as writer of this weblog you have to agree with me. But add in the big screen factor w/ the always neeeded kick ass sound system and the movie becomes action paradise.
The home theater purchase has affected our decision to move into a smaller/cheaper apartment. If our place was any smaller we'd be way too close to the tv.
It's a small but depressing thing. I randomnly do searches for myself, just to see if I can be found on the web. When you do a search for the word downbridge on yahoo! my site comes up #5. Which is very hard to explain because I haven't updated my site in months. But I'm not complaining.
I used to read calvin & hobbes in the comics everyday. I would pickup the paper somewhere so I could get a morning chuckle. Of course December 31, 1995 the last strip was published. I noticed that my comic strip reading pretty much slowed down after that. There are still some quality strips out there, but I haven't really gotten hooked on any.
I randomnly found this site from the official publishers of Calvin & Hobbes. You can read archived strips and stuff. uComics Calvin and Hobbes site
$4.50 is what Shawana and I were planning on spending Saturday when we went to Circuit City, and that was only to get a replacement ground cable for her subwoofer system in the back of her truck. We ended up with a new home theater system. A really big system based on a Hitachi 65" projection TV. The package also includes infinity speakers all around an Onkyo receiver and a sweet 12" velodyne subwoofer. The crazy thing is all these components have to fit in our apartment's living room. We plan to get a house someday, so that's the justification for the whomper sized tv. Its really exciting to be one of those customers. We were in the store for 3 hours, contemplating the purchase, the size of the tv, newer model or the older model. Its all an experience when making a purchase of this magnitude. We know our salesman's name, Brett, purely because we talked or more like listened to him talk non-stop for hours. He was helpful enough, but that still doesn't lift my hatred for electronics salesmen.
The TV doesn't get delivered until Monday evening, but we took home all the audio components and set them up. We took apart and discarded Shawana's old particle board entertainment center to make way for the tv. Which lead into the problem w/ dvd storage. We both have alot of movies, not an insane amount, but we could run a blockbuster branch out of the living room. With all this gear I can see our neighbors becoming haters. The problem w/ apartment living is coexisting w/ others, so we can't really flex the system to its potential. At least not yet anyway.
Of course to add stress to all this our beautiful cats, Shelby and Elise enter the picture. There is new fabric everywhere for our kittens to mess with. The rest of the evening was chasing and swearing at the cats. Its not their fault for being curious but damn them if we have to get new speaker grills by June.
What scares me is that the delivery guys have to deliver a 324 pound tv to our second story apartment, and I don't look forward to the day when we move out of this apartment and have to take the behemoth with us.
There is a guy in the apartment complex that wins for total moron. He drives one of those landrover discoveries and Shawana and I have just pegged him as a bad driver. The other day he was on his cellphone and didn't even look to see my rav4 while he pulled out in front of me. And he's almost always guaranteed to park badly in any given parking space. Most of the time he is parked crooked or he parks that damned SUV so close to my rav4 that I'm wishing my weight-loss shakes were more effective.
Last night, Shawana and I got to witness yet another reason why him and his landrover should discover some driving skills. The parking in the middle of the apartment complex has a little strip of crapping grass, because it doubles as the dog walk area, with parking spacing on both sides. Each parking space has one of those concrete stops between the space and the grass. If you can imagine it, please continue reading.
So as the story goes, Shawana and I were heading to my car becuase we were heading to the airport. We were giving her friend Onekki a ride to the rental car dealership. We see Mr. Landrover pull into a parking space, also taking note to walk wide because you never know. He's still in the car when we see him drive forward through the parking space. Apparently he felt like 4wheeling today because he goes up and over the concrete block, over the crapping grass and then over the other concrete block into the space directly in front of him.
Now keep in mind that he could have simple drove around to the other side and parked into that space. I guess the shortcut made sense to him. He probably wanted to see if his landrover could do it, we don't know why, but he is simply a baffoon w/ a driver's liscense.
So I found an interesting link awhile back. Shawana got me an Olympus C-750uz camera. This link is pictures of other c750uz users have shot.
I'm still on the quest for inspiration and I think I'll share the "process" by augmenting this blog into a photoblog. It seems a natural course of events. I like photography even more than writing. But I'm open to opinions, let me know what your comments are.
check Dale Chihuly. He currently has exhibits going on in St. Petersburg and Orlando. Hopefully we'll be able to go with my good friends Alex and Amy to the St. Pete exhibit this weekend (hint: if they come sunday). I've only seen pictures but he does some crazy sculptures w/ glass. I sit next to a quirky artist who works with me on picture editing. She does some weird art, like with glow-in-the-dark stuff. To each their own, I won't say anything about her style except its not for me. Anyway, she heard me talking about my plans to go to the exhibit and she shared some pictures she took of the exhibit when she went. Phenomenal is how I'll describe it from the pictures, and I'm sure when we get to see them we'll like the artwork. I know I'm slow on jumping on Chihuly's bandwagon but thats an issue I can deal with. So be sure to check it out! Thanks goes to Alex and Amy for the info.
I'm glad to hear from fellow artists who understand my current state of funk. So there is hope that my current condition can change. But a sever backslide happened today as I started playing a new game on the pc. Its Monolopy Tycoon and I played it for hours. It's like simcity and only a little bit like Monopoly but its all fun and has addictive qualities. You get to build all types of businesses and run them. I started an endless game w/ no objective and I'm kicking ass. Its extremely hard to not like a game when you are winning.
We got it during one of our rare trips to Wally's World to pick up some new dvds and ended up in the cheap game aisle. Shawana picked a few games for herself: Tropico, Stonghold, Wheel of Fortune w/ Vanna White video clips, how grand, and the forementioned Monopoly Tycoon. Its cheap entertainment. It wasn't a proactive night, but I didn't feel stressed about work for awhile.
My friend Ryan Wollard, the Ketchup King and Florida artist has gotten his site online. Its got a gallery of his work and is pretty cool. Much love goes to Alex Copeland for getting his and Ryan's site online.
The funk shall soon be lifted. There is a funk that has surround my life with darkness. Its almost the end of March and the sign on the front door of the downBridge site still says closed.
The plans have changed a little. I'm going to rework this blog section before I get serious about the portfolio/photography side. I realized that when I was writing into this blog that my mind feels more open to ideas and is more willing to work. So here is the finger to the funk that has kept me down. Its time for a different tune, hopefully jazz. Sometime in April I should everything back to normal.
I hate having to work through lunch. I don't have enough grounds to really complain about my situation. I'm very lucky to be working a job for 37.5 hours a week and get paid for 40. Our boss still gives us an hour lunch break. Thats pretty cool, but eating at my desk while working photoshop during the lunch hour definitely makes me seem tense. I get a bit of anxiety like I can't work fast enough or do enough things. I'm trying to complete multiple tasks without any relaxation. I can only blame myself though because I had a doctor's appointment yesterday morning in downtown St. petersburg @ 8:15am, which wouldn't be bad if I didn't have to be at work at 8:30 and work wasn't in Dunedin which is a good 30-40 minutes north.
It was good to go back to the doctor. Yeah, not many people share that love of visiting doctors like I have right now. Its been almost 2 years since I was at a job long enough to receive medical benefits. Thats really sad, but this marks a change. Its 1/4 the way through 2004 and I've been depressed. So depressed that I have no vision. I think I've been depressed for 2 years and not a deep depression that makes me not want to live. But its severe enough to make meo not appreciate the beauty in things around me. To sum all that up, I have a long going case of designer's block. I would say aritst's block, but I don't feel I fit into the definition of an artist because the skills ain't there. An artist who doesn't express true happiness in his life and world is as ugly as unmolded clay. Sure there is potential in the clay, but unused expression can be costly. This is me, convincing my ass to move.
Stupid people do exist! It really is a shame when a spam-generator has to stoop to such a low level. A would-be advertiser is trying to use my weblog for his advertising spot by leaving comments. Its one thing to send shit to my email address, but its wrong and I mean really wrong to look at my personal weblog and use it for selling shit products. I curse you loser and all the crap you sell. You are free to look at this site and enjoy the reading, though they are infrequent as of late, but its not for you.