The Journal of Joe The Peacock. Yay.

7.02.2009:

Complete Technology Meltdown

6:59 PM

Yesterday was one of the most insane meltdowns I've ever experienced.

My laptop's hard drive has been acting a bit crazy lately, but late Monday night, it decided to take a crap all over itself - right in the middle of an iPhone sync, which pretty much destroyed that. Then, my printer asploded, my email server had a bug which marked all incoming and outgoing mail as "abuse" mail (which pretty much shut me down), and my car's electrical whatevers overloaded and fried my ipod dock's lighter connection.

And all of this on the absolute busiest week I've had in months work-wise.

The iPhone's been restored, the laptop has been dropped off at the Apple repair center, the iPod dock was replaced by the store (a bit unwittingly, but nonetheless), the printer's been replaced under warranty, and MediaTemple fixed my email issue. So it looks like the recovery effort is going well... Thank God my desktop still works, or else I wouldn't be able to get any work done, much less this blog po

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6.30.2009:

The Suckiest Suck In The History of Suck

4:18 PM

It's hardly new, but I was reminded by a friend of mine today of Kel's Photo Creations.

Usually, I'm very supportive of people who are just learning Photoshop, or just starting out in art and design. Hell, I'm usually supportive of people who've been doing it for years and just suck at it. And I'm downright pleased to support the mentally handicapped when they pick up crayons and produce something creative. But I believe deeply, as do the Dead Milkmen, that there's a special place in hell for people who just won't learn to color right, and yet have the unmitigated gall to charge for it.

I hate these kinds of "artists." These are talentless hacks who spend their lives being talentless hacks whilst hiding under a layer of shame that masquerades as "My Art." They refuse to learn a skill, much less improve on it. They get some idea in their head that, because they can type "Photoshop" and "Torrent" in Google and find an enabler for their particular brand of bad ideas, they have the right to actually do something with it. But who I hate more are the morons who actually hand over good money for the privilege of having their soul sucked right out of their eye sockets by this evil demon:

GNAR I WILL EAT YOUR SOUL BLEAGH

And then there's this little gem, which I've dubbed The Poorly Laid-Out Collage of Eye Death:

Hi! We're sad to be in this picture!

And what more can one say about this picture that isn't already said by the event horizon that was just created inside your monitor the second you loaded it, due to the severe amount of pure suck:

The bows... The Eyes... The Lips... The cutout of the hair...
Why, it's color by numbers, only with letters,
and they all add up to spell out "SUCK"

What the FUCK? How does one get by doing this shit without ever Googling "good art" and seeing what they're up against? What's more, how did anyone ever hand over a check for this ungodly thing?

If you're reading this, Kel, you suck. You suck you suck you suck. There's no school you can go to, there's no class you can take... Just fucking stop. With art entirely, I mean. And if you refuse to take that bit of advice, at least stop polluting the internet with it. I'd rather see fan fiction illustrations of Decepticons fucking than your grabasstic crap.

Yeah, uh... Don't click that link. Seriously.

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6.29.2009:

Why is "Tina" Slang For Crystal Meth?

11:18 PM

Does anyone have a clue why the hell "Tina" is slang for crystal meth? I've Googled it, and all I can find that even remotely explains it is this entry:

"Tina Or Teena - name derives from the fact that meth is commonly bought in sixteenths of an ounce packages (aka "baggies") "

THIS MAKES NO SENSE. It only comes up because my company's name is This Is Not Art! Productions, and sometimes I refer to it as Tina, as in "Tina's picking up dinner" or "Tina just bought a new printer." And my company's site is really pathetic (especially considering what I do and who I've done it for). And when I mentioned to my friend Liz that I'm finally building a proper site for Tina, she was confused - she thought I was building a site dedicated to FAQs about crystal meth.

So really, does anyone have any clue why this name stuck? I mean... It makes no sense whatsoever.

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6.26.2009:

Michael Jackson is dead.

3:40 PM

Did you hear?

Well, if not, you're lying, because you're reading this on the internet and there's no way in hell you could have connected to the internet today at any point and not seen it somewhere.

Anyway, I don't have much in terms of emotion regarding this news. I loved Thriller as a kid, but I never owned a red zipper jacket and I never got motivated to dance or sing or anything based on him. He was a constant presence on the radio and TV when I was a child, so in that I feel some sadness that we've lost an icon... But we kinda did already, didn't we?

The moment I saw MJ on TV talking about how he never touched that little boy, it was over for me. He was wierd before that, and strange before that, and larger than life before that... But right then, he was over. It didn't matter if he did or didn't. It was over, and that's that.

But I read an article by Andrew Sullivan this morning that really nailed how I feel about Michael Jackson. He was an abused child who had his childhood taken from him, and spent the rest of his life trying to get one back. And that's really the price of fame, isn't it? The bigger you get, the more you belong to the public. And the more of you they own, the more you owe them.

I never feel sorry for celebrities who make their own careers, and then get all pissy when they have no privacy. You did it to yourself, so suck it up and perform, monkey. But in MJ's case... He never had the choice or a chance. He was a star from childhood, because his father forced him into that position. True, his talent made him lovable, but who knows if he would have chosen to display that talent on his own?

So to that end, I have always felt a little bad for Michael Jackson, but after reading Sullivan's article about his death, I really do feel bad for the guy. He had all the money he could have ever wanted, and it was never enough to buy his own freedom. He was loved by everyone and hated himself. His misery changed music and dance forever.

I do hope he rests in peace.

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6.25.2009:

Tori Amos Fucking Sucks

2:19 PM

Ever since the new Tori Amos record came out, I've had no quarter from the hyperventilating 30-something female friends of mine who just can't shut the fuck up about it. I hate her, and always have. And when I try to explain why, they get all pissy and moany and offendy and accuse me of picking on a rape victim.

Not so. And here's why.

I've had enough things happen in my life that are shitty enough to qualify for "life altering." And for the most part, you've never read about any of them. Sure, you've read about flubbed first-ever sexual encounters and porn on Wal-Mart TVs and various mishaps with various body fluids in various places... But none of these things could really be considered "life altering." They're not gross victimizations of my person. They're not serious issues that shouldn't be demeaned by my exploitation.

Which is why I find Tori Amos so fucking gross.

Tori Amos was a fame-chasing trendy pop mistress who failed in her pathetic band Y Kant Tori Read. She dressed like Madonna and and sang like Madonna with Shit In Her Mouth:

She sucked.

Then, the label (Atlantic, who gave her a 6 record deal for whatever fucking reason), decided to repackage her. In their infinite wisdom (and of course, following the trend of grunge music that was rising), they listened to a Sarah McLaghlan record and said "Ok, now you sound like that."

In order to further her artistic whatevers, she drew from these deep dark experiences in her life that sounded a lot like rape. In recent years, there's been a rather large crusade across the net to actually disprove her allegations of rape - I won't ever go that far, because I wasn't there and I take that kind of shit seriously.

Which is my point. I know several assault victims who, even many years later, won't talk about the event. It's not that they're repressed, it's that they won't let it become who they are. And that's what Tori is all about - the personification of her own misery. It's fairly disgusting, and if she were to start to break out now, we'd all pile on and call her Emo. But because a ton of impressionable artsy grungy girls listened to her when they were teenagers and felt like they finally understood what it means to be A WOMAN!!!!! and now all those impressionable artsy grungy girls are stupid whiny adult WOMEN!!!!! who love Tori, she has this grandfathered-in legitimacy.

I don't dispute that her voice has improved over the years, and I don't doubt that she plays a mean piano. But if she wrote out her lyrics and posted it to any forum on the internet, she'd quickly have this graphic pasted just below her posts:

When you're a teenager, this kind of nonsense feels great. It's fantastic to be so misunderstood that only a million-selling recording artist really gets you. But come on... Tori Amos sucks. I have no problem with making a spectacle out of one's misery -- I've made an entire career out of it. But I feel that when the context shifts from "check this out" or "wanna laugh?" to "Oh woe is me!!! I'm a sad artist with a 6 record deal and blew the first record on late 80's clichepop, so now I have to change gears -- quick, what's a subject people will actually take seriously????" then you lose any and all merit. And then you suck.

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