The Journal of Joe The Peacock. Yay.

Tooooo much

noreply@blogger.com (JtP) — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 16:32:00 +0000

There is just way too much going on right now. I'm banging away at client-driven deadlines, trying to close out a few gigs so I can have the fall and winter to dedicate to the football thing. Meanwhile, I'm writing stories that kinda suck, and making videos with me in batman masks cobbled together over a week and a half of shooting crap that just doesn't work well.

So this is what it means to be a frustrated artist...

Anyway, I'm just glad that AT&T finally got the intertubes connected back to my home so I can retire this shotgun receiver assembly for leaching my neighbor's wifi that only worked half the time.

Busy busy busy.

Ouch.

noreply@blogger.com (JtP) — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 16:26:00 +0000

I hope when I die, I will have lived a life that fostered bonding, friendship, and unity. And I wish these things not because I give a crap about bonding, friendship OR unity, but because I really don't want an obituary like this to cap my time on this earth.

AT&T = opposite of DirecTV

noreply@blogger.com (JtP) — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 21:52:00 +0000

So, I made my payment for my AT&T DSL service. The dipshit who took the payment did it through a "new system" that, according to one of the more helpful agents, shouldn't have been used. My service got disconnected because the payment got "hung".

So, I spend about 4 hours on the phone yesterday and today to find all of this out, and in that time, I hear any number of answers to the question "When will my service be back up?" I heard "within the hour," "in 24 hours," "in 48 hours", and just now "up to 72 hours."

I fucking HATE AT&T.

HATE.

***Update***

AND NOW THEY'RE SAYING WEDNESDAY OF NEXT WEEK.

What assholes. I could fire them and have Comcast install new service by Tuesday. The only reason I won't is because if there's one company I hate more than AT&T, it's Comcast.

***Update***

Still on hold with these jerks, but the guy helping me isn't a jerk. He's nice. His name is Joseph. People named Joseph are wonderful.

Also, I made this with "Thinking Putty" while waiting:

*** Update Even More OMG ***

It's fucking retarded that I've been on hold long enough to make this one:

I love Madden, but I hate trivia hosts (no offense, Noel)

noreply@blogger.com (JtP) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 21:01:00 +0000

So, Madden '09 is awesome. I'll just go ahead and get that out of the way.

I've been playing it a bit with my buddy Jeremy, and we both agree, this is one of the best editions of the game that's come out in... Like, ever. And while talking about it, I was reminiscing about how much fun I used to have playing Madden 96 with Mike, and Madden 2000 with my brother in law. And it got me curious to check out what other magazines and websites are saying about the 20th anniversary of the game.

So I ran across this one from Gamespot.com (which is really, really well done), and as I read into the recaps, it brought up the Madden Curse and how it effected the various athletes to grace the cover of the historic franchise the past 10 years or so - which brought to mind a particularly aggrevating memory.
I was playing trivia in a bar in 2006 in New York with some friends, and one of the last questions was "Who was the first NFL Player to appear on the cover of a Madden football game?" We were tied with 2 other teams at that point, and I knew the answer as clearly as I knew my own name - it was Barry Sanders.

I knew this because my cousin Stephen is a MASSIVE Barry Sanders fan. Always has been, and still is now. He has posters, pictures, stats and autographed everything hanging up all over his house - and back in 2000, one of his hugest moments was getting Barry Sanders to autograph his copy of Madden 2000 for Playstation.

Well, the trivia host - who was a total cock, like almost every single trivia host I've ever met ever in my entire life ever ever (except Noel, who I desperately mean no offense toward), was all cocky when he revealed the answer to be Eddie George, on Madden 2001. The other two teams got points, we fell behind, and I was looked at like a pile of kitten droppings by the rest of my table.

Not willing to put up with this indignity, but not wanting to cause a huge scene, I stood up and walked over to him and said "Dude, it was Barry Sanders."

He covered the microphone with his hand and said "What?"

I said "Madden 2000 had Barry Sanders on the cover. The answer is Barry Sanders."

He said "I'm sorry, it was Eddie George. Please take your seat."

I pulled out my Treo (hot to trot at the time, I know) and began dialing up a picture. "What are you doing?" he asked.

"Proving you wrong," I replied.

"I'm not wrong," he stated. "I write these questions myself. I did the research. It's Eddie George."

The picture of the cover of Madden 2000 loaded, and looked not unlike this:

He sighed at me and said "Come on, you can't even tell that's him." So, I Googled "Barry Sandars Madden 2000" and came up with a number of pages totalling in the millions. I dialed through some and argued my case. The trivia dick said "Look, I'm not giving you the points, go sit down." I demanded to talk to the manager of the bar. "It won't matter, he's not MY manager, so just go sit down."

I stood fast. "I'm not leaving until you acknowledge I'm right."

He grimaced. "Fine, how about I give you your points, and we just leave it at that?"

"So you're saying I'm right?"

"Sure, fine, whatever."

"Then take off the other team's points," I demanded.

"I'm not going to do that," he replied.

"Barry Sanders was the first player to be on a Madden cover. You just agreed with me. I want my points, and I want the other teams to have points deducted for being wrong."

"Look, I'm sorry, it's not going to happen," he stated.

I got aggrevated. I stamped. I stammered. I grabbed his microphone.

"Excuse me everyone," I said, with the trivia dude demanding I give the mic back, "I just want to ask you all something. I just proved to this man that Barry Sanders was on the cover of Madden 2000, a year before Eddie George appeared on the cover in 2001. He's acknowledged that I'm right, and offered to give me my points. Now, my question is, if I'm right, then should the other two teams get points even though they were wrong?"

The folks paying attention all said "no." Even one of the two teams said so.

I handed the mic back to the trivia guy and nodded, indicating that he should go ahead and make things right, then I headed back to my seat. Just as I sat down, the trivia guy announced, "Folks, I need to make a correction - I believe I read the question wrong. I am looking at it here, and it says "Who was the first NFL player to have his portrait on the cover of a Madden game?"

My mouth gaped open.

"The picture that the 'gentleman' you just heard from showed me has Barry Sanders in the background, so we're not going to be able to accept his answer as correct."

"Come on!" I demanded.

"Sorry, that's how the question was worded," he said into the mic.

"If you'd read it that way in the first place, I could have answered it differently!" I shouted, nearly as loud as the PA carrying his voice was. "But you didn't, you just asked who was on the cover first!"

"Sir," I heard from behind me.

I turned around. It was someone who I figure was the manager. "You should take your seat and relax."

"But it's not fair!" I demanded.

"It's okay," he responded. "We'll give you your next round of drinks on the house... Just let this one go."

And so, we lost the match due to the dipshit trivia dickhead moron retard deciding to re-ask the question differently. But we did get free drinks, and that was nice...

Still, I was right, goddammit.

Desire and anxiety (and how they're related)

noreply@blogger.com (JtP) — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 19:12:00 +0000

I have a friend.

I know, shocking information indeed... Someone actually likes me. But hey, it's true, and this post is about him.

This friend is a good friend. He's honest and loyal and unafraid to tell people exactly what he thinks of them, even his friends. Especially his friends. The people he has the most to lose from, he's the most honest with (especially if he has something negative to point out). It's a paradox, but oddly enough, it becomes a feature that one tends to rely on after a while.

Anyway, this friend is a great guy with a great amount of potential in a great many fields. But on the work front, he's traditionally taken jobs that are far below his capacity for both creativity and effort. He worked retail and labor jobs, despite the fact that he has a love and a talent for programming.

He programmed one employer's website. He programs websites on his own at night when he's at home, for fun. He's programmed sites for me as favors. I even hired him to write code for me for a little over a year, giving him tons of resume material and experience. He's REALLY GOOD, too.

But for some reason, he's afraid beyond belief to actually apply for a programming job. He looks at the increase in salary and the fact that it's a job in a field he actually wants, and he freezes up. He won't send his resume. He won't call potential employers. He feels - after all this time - he lacks the experience necessary to get a "real job." He feels he won't even be considered for the position, and even if he is, he won't get it, and even if he does, they'll fire him because he's not John Carmack or Robert Dvorak or Stallman or Torvalds. He's just him, and he does a fine job at what he does... But he has ZERO confidence in his ability to get a development job.

Which strikes me as curious.

He had no experience whatsoever in his last job - they taught him everything he needed to know the first two weeks he was there. But for some reason, he wasn't nervous about the interview, and he didn't give himself fits over the actual job. And I wonder why that is.

In my experience, I've found that we only get anxious over the things we actually care about. We only afford ourselves the adrenaline shakes and worry over something we really want. The situation with a development job and a labor job are exactly the same to my friend, but because one is just a job and the other is something he truly wants to do, he stresses over the concept of even attempting to get the development job to the point where he talks himself out of it before he even tries. He won't call a recruiter at one place because it's an hour drive to commute. He won't call another because they want 3+ years of experience and he only has 2 years, 11 months experience.

So on and so forth.

If his actual desire was, say, to be CTO of the company, a development job would be menial to him. He wouldn't obsess, he'd just keep trying place after place until they gave him a development position he could leverage into a higher paying gig.

Ever take aim at a target, only to miss it? Did you know that most archers and rifle range experts recommend focusing on an imaginary point just beyond the target?

Did you know it helps?

It's an odd, but sadly true, fact of life that the surest way to achieve a goal is to aim at a much larger goal above it. Or... Simply treat your goal like it's just a step to something else. It's worked for me most of my life, and I'm hoping it'll work for my friend... If he'll just pick up the damn phone and let me talk some sense into him.

DirecTV makes good

noreply@blogger.com (JtP) — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 18:39:00 +0000

So, regarding my stupidity on my DirecTV bill the past year and a half...

I don't have to pay for TV again for a year and a half. And to think, I was planning on cancelling next month to save money :P

Guessing game time!

noreply@blogger.com (JtP) — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 18:28:00 +0000

Hey, guess what this car contains?

If you guessed 'An asshole,' YOU TOTALLY WIN!

Rice-a-Roni for YOU!

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Sent via SMS. Please forgive any typos or pointlessness.

Soooooo.... Guess who's stupid about DirecTV...

noreply@blogger.com (JtP) — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 20:23:00 +0000

As it would turn out, I have been paying double for my DirecTV service for the past year.

This is explainable, I promise... But the truth is, even after the explanation, I'm still a moron.

You see, I do not pay the bills in my family. Andrea does. Andrea went to school for six years to be a statistics major with a concentration in actuarial science. She studied long and hard and pressed through many major exams to become certified in her field.

I quit college after a few months to go make a lot more than I was worth making webpages.

She saved her money earned through college so that she could pay off her student loans and perhaps have a little to work with once she earned her degree, certifications, and credentials while looking for a job.

I bought every single N64, Playstation / PS2, Dreamcast and Xbox game that ever came out, the day they came out, and owed exactly 400 bucks a month for rent on a house I shared with my friends.

She is responsible.

I buy 20" widescreen doodlepads for my computer so I can parade around conventions and pretend to be a designer.

SO! She pays the bills. I just do stuff that feels like art until someone decides to make the foolish decision to pay me for it.

I also love football and hockey, and when I signed up for DirecTV, I took advantage of their package deal to get NFL Sunday Ticket and some whiz-bang uberchannel suite. When DirecTV dropped Tivo and started their own DVR thingy, we opted in for those. It was a simple phone call. I never even kept track of what was happening to the bill, I just knew I wanted to record Battlestar Galactica.

So, today I was online making sure NFL Sunday Ticket was on my package, when I noticed I was paying for both a premium package at 109.99 and the Plus DVR package for 69.99 a month. This was news to me... I had no idea we were paying over 200 bucks a month for tv.

So I called my wife - and she responded "Well, you have all that hockey and football stuff, I just figured that's what we paid for tv every month." And she was right to assume so, since that's what the very first bills were like. But in March of last year, with the adding of the DVR package, we had just finished our final installment for that year's NHL Center Ice package.

And of course, I would sooner eat a snail than look at a single bill, so I just let her handle it. And so a year and more has gone by with us paying an insane amount of money for satellite tv, just because each assumed the other knew what the hell was going on.

DirecTV has assured me that I will be paid back for this, but they haven't yet figured out if it's going to be a huge credit on my bill (and thus "free" service for the next however long), or a check for a refund. I'll find that out this weekend.

I feel like a tard. Needless to say, we're auditing every single bill we get now (which, thankfully, are only our mortgage and services like tv, water, and whatnot).

Happiness is...

noreply@blogger.com (JtP) — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 20:15:00 +0000

... a new Wacom Cintiq 20wsx:

I traded up from the 12wx - my big meaty hands were simply too large to work directly on the 12" display space. This one though... It's perfect in every way. I still have about 2 days worth of configuring and adjusting to make it 100% where I want it, and the bad news is that I have to go out of town this weekend.

There is nothing worse than leaving a brand new shiny toy.

And yes, that is a glove with the finger and thumb cut out. It's so i can rest my hand on the screen without dragging handgrease all over the place.

The 15 year tattoo, part 7 (final)

noreply@blogger.com (JtP) — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 01:45:00 +0000

...Wow.

Seems like yesterday that I walked into A.B.T. Tattoo and met Todo, and this all started, but after 7 sessions, the sleeve is pretty much complete. There's still about 5 hours of touchup to do, but for all intents and purposes... This is it. (You can view the whole process in pictures here)

I am pleased to show you the completed vision. But first, the 7th sesson:

This shows the final bit of the smoke and landscape as the city of Neo-Tokyo explodes when Akira goes off.

And now, the full sleeve - a masterwork by the legendary Todo:

One day, I'll do a post on why this tattoo, what each of the pieces mean (both in the story and in my particular design) and whatnot, but for now, I'm beat.

Todo doin' his thing

noreply@blogger.com (JtP) — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 18:04:00 +0000

Wheeeee, the elbow sure feels good...

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Sent via SMS. Please forgive any typos or pointlessness.

Here's a secret...

noreply@blogger.com (JtP) — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 15:42:00 +0000

Bloggers don't read bloggers.

It's just how it goes. When you're so self-absorbed as to think what YOU say matters to the general populace of the planet, you can't be bothered with the trifles of others who think they're so damn important. You're the one saving the planet one post at a time, not them, etc. and so forth. It's just how narcissism works.

Anyway, I say this to frame the following announcement - I just subscribed to Overthinking It, my 4th ever blog subscription in the over 15 years I've been using the internet, and over 7 years that the term existed. And this is the post that got me: The philosophy of Batman.

Don't get me wrong, I read blog posts all the time. But I don't subscribe to them - I don't really get into following a blog, unless it's Seth Godin, MMAFrenzy, or Photoshop Disasters - and that last one, I only subscribed to last week, after enough quality posts convinced me to put it on my radar.

And now, Overthinking It is on the list. And it's not just because of the Batman post. The Batman post was... I mean... It's just fantastic. The writer REALLY knows his philosophy, and it's not just because he knows Neitzche and Schopenhauer and Kant and The Federalist Papers... It's because he actually understands what the hell is going on in them - all of them, and how they relate to one another. It's not just material to him... It's not just shit he read when he was depressed and/or feeling superior to the rest of the planet because he 'gets it' - he actually DOES get it, which is why nothing he writes feels lofty or 'superior'. It's just good.

I like it, anyway. If nothing else, read the batman thing. Or, if you don't do that, check out the LOLJoker bit. That's funny.

Gonna play me some football

noreply@blogger.com (JtP) — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 01:33:00 +0000

We took my measurements at the gym today, and I was so encouraged by the numbers, I felt like starting Could I Have Made It: Season 2 early. So I posted a precursor post today, and in there are the results of my hard work over the past 3/4 of a year of radio silence.

I'll be updating it every day from now until the tryouts.

Who needs coffee?

noreply@blogger.com (JtP) — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 11:08:00 +0000

A great way to begin the morning. This will wake you right up.

The 15 year tattoo, part 6

noreply@blogger.com (JtP) — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 02:52:00 +0000

I'm beat. 5 hours of having the most sensitive part of my arm poked with needles, through some of the most detailed work of the entire piece so far, has completely worn me out.

Here's pics. I'll be more expressive tomorrow or something.

My dad is 80

noreply@blogger.com (JtP) — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 15:33:00 +0000

Yesterday, my father turned 80 years old.

He's lived through three of the four industrial revolutions in this nation. That just blows my mind.

He adopted my sister and I when I was 14 and she was 13, even after he'd raised us for 4 years, knowing fully well what he was getting into.

So I bought him one of these for the celebration last night:

He's a scotch man, and recognized what he had the second I handed it to him.

Phenomenal drink. Well worth both the price and the occasion.

Beatboxing Flute + Cello

noreply@blogger.com (JtP) — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:50:00 +0000

I could write something here, but honestly, nothing I can ever come up with could ever match the awesome of this.

I think I'm completely done writing anything for at least a few days while I recover.

What I'd do, #1: Barbasol Ad

noreply@blogger.com (JtP) — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 16:16:00 +0000

So, in addition to illustration and graphic design and web development, I sometimes also do marketing and brand management for people who have money and want to waste it on a guy with Akira all over his arm telling them what to do.

Something has recently struck me and just won't leave me alone.
It seems to me that, once one company goes a certain route to appeal to a demographic, just about every single company competing with them decides to do the same thing. Take the "Hip Urbanite" angle started by Volkswagon and now copied by Ford, Chevy and everyone else who has a hatchback and a hankering to appeal to young folks with more disposable income than common sense.

The most recent one to strike me is the "Hot, Big-Breasted Chick + Absurdist" movement that's running through men's hygiene products. A transforming razor that converts from high-tech gadget to a... Well, razor. Or the Bow-Chicka-Wow-Wow shit that Axe / Lynx is doing.

The most recent casualties are Old Spice and Barbasol. I can just see the board members at the holding companies for those brands gnashing their teeth and wringing their fingers when they see commercials like this one for Edge Gel:

Oh MAN! Once the Barbasol brand managers see this, they get feverish and immediately demand a Rolodex full of Hip Advertising Firms^TM to come up with something fresh and exciting and WHATEVER JUST GET ME BIG TITS AND ABSURDITY, NOW:

Come on.

This ad does not stand out. It does not promote brand awareness. It does not cause you to consider Barbasol before considering any of the 30 other brands of shaving cream / gel on the shelf at Wal-Mart. It just... Is. If anything, it reminds you just how shitty your job probably is. It reminds you that there are multiple levels above you, and in order to even consider getting to somewhere near the top, you're still going to have to push the mop, and after that, wear stupid glasses and sweat and shovel paper.

Furthermore, that ad cost probably $500,000 to make, and additional $5m - $30m to place and get promotion on networks and cable channels. And for what? The Hip Advertising Firms^TM will begin talking to you about brand awareness; that the new campaign promotes Barbasol Ultra as a Now and With-It brand on par with other "Hip" brands like Axe and Edge who are winning the 18 - 23 demo and creating loyal customers; the Ultra name will seperate this new product from the Barbasol of old; it's not your dad's shaving soap and SHUT THE FUCK UP ALREADY. You're wrong.

It will simply either be bought or not bought. Your ad does nothing. The slick binder with your proofs and storyboards impressed a brand manager, not the market. You get paid, the status quo is upheld, and everyone "wins". But nothing changes, it's just boring.

So, what I would do, if Barbasol's brand manager hired me:

A ten second spot. That's all - ten seconds.

The first two seconds would be a "pull out" shot of a video screen playing a hip, "edgy" big-titted blonde and fully-shaved gym-muscled male (make sure this guy looks as effiminate as possible, and completely disinterested in the female). Make them say some stupid catchphrase, like "SMOOTH!"

Once the zoom-out reached the point where the display (monitor playing the hip ad) was seen, the frame would then zoom-out quickly, and from stage right, a VERY muscular - but not bodybuilder type, more along the lines of a long-term mechanic with a real person's body (possibly a World's Strongest Man winner) man would enter. VERY manly - not this Metrosexual crap that companies seem to think we care about these days. The man would smash his fist down and through the monitor playing the commercial. He would finish wrecking this plasma / LCD display, pick up a can of Barbasol, and yell "BITCHES use GEL! MEN use BARBASOL!"

End commercial.

That's it.

Within a week, every feminist and possibly gay rights group would be in an uproar. The company would be forced to pull the ad. The ad would hit YouTube and Revver and Veoh and whatnot as a "banned ad."

Women don't buy Barbasol. They would call for a boycot. Big deal.

Homosexual men may buy Barbasol, but would probably call for a boycot themselves.

The very fact that females and "homosexuals" rebel against a product is a call for every "manly" man on earth to instantly purchase it, or have their manhood questioned. Every man who is aware of the ad who passes a shaving cream asile will, at the very least, consider the connotations of buying a gel.

Locker rooms across the nation would be stocked with nothing but Barbasol.

And the total cost of the ad? Probably $50k to shoot and produce, with another $1m in spot purchases. Once it's yanked, everything after that is viral and, thus, free. If the ad budget is $30m, you've got roughly +$28m to spend on giving away Barbasol to manly men who want it. Buy one, get one free. Get a free razor with Barbasol. What-have-you - the point is you have the money left over to get the product into the hands of those who want it.

And if the whole thing flopped and no one cared? You're out $1m + $50k on an ad. That's PEANUTS compared to the failure of the hip, slick big-titted absurd commercial you've made that does nothing for you, along with producing an entire line of "Ultra" cans.

Just my 10 minute consideration of this product and their silly commercial.

And then 7 mins later...

noreply@blogger.com (JtP) — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 21:12:00 +0000

...The next band of storms moves in and blows away the rainbow.

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Sent via SMS. Please forgive any typos or pointlessness.

Rainbow in the dark

noreply@blogger.com (JtP) — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 21:02:00 +0000

Come to the beach and live the Dio experience!

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Sent via SMS. Please forgive any typos or pointlessness.

Fanboys? Right...

noreply@blogger.com (JtP) — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 16:14:00 +0000

What do you do when there's a tropical storm at the beach where you're staying the weekend for a a wedding? Why, go see The Dark Knight, of course. And that's what we did yesterday, and it was as amazing as everyone's making it out to be. Go see it.

But this post is not about The Dark Knight. It is about what happened immediately after The Dark Knight.

We walked out and saw, in the lobby of the theater, tables set up by the local comic book shop, Fanboy Comics. They had toys and collectibles and comics and graphic novels all related to The Dark Knight. They had a man in a Flash costume walking around the lobby (for the record, his boots were yellow rubber galoshes... It really capped off the outfit). The main proprietor was wearing a Superman shirt, was about 5' 2", had glasses and a bit of a potbelly... Basically, he was every characture you've ever seen regarding comic book fans and store owners.

I walked up to the table with a smile on my face. "Wow, this is brilliant!" I told him. And I really felt it was - it was the first time I'd seen a comic shop take the reigns and use the power of public interest in a comic property to promote further learning of the material. I loved it.

He looked at me for a few seconds. "Thanks," he said pensively.

I knew right then what was going through his head, because I've seen it a thousand times, at every comic convention and store and other gathering I've been too - a gigantic 6' 3" jockish dude comes up to a small comic book / sci-fi fan and starts talking the talk.

"I really like that you're promoting your store with the movie," I said. "The more fans, the better the industry!"

He just looked at me strangely.

Mike pulled me aside and said "You think he thinks you're making fun of him?"

"Probably," I replied. So I took a few of the Free Comic Book Day comics they had laying out, and tried to make sure he knew that I wasn't trying to be a facetious dick. "What did you think of the movie?" I asked him.

"I liked it," he said with a note of snobbery.

"Yeah, I really like Bale's interpretation of the Miller Batman persona," I replied. "He plays the grittier Batman well."

"Sure, yeah," he answered.

"What'd you think of the locals dressing like Batman, like they did in Dark Knight Returns?"

"It was kinda cool," he replied. He was loosening up. "I like the tribute."

"Yeah, same with the Batmobile," I said. "It looks just like the one with the sonic blasters that took down Superman."

We chatted for a minute, and he gave me permission to open the bagged hardcover of The 100 Greatest Batman Covers book laying on the table. He watched as I carefully puled the tape from the lip-side of the bag, the way a real fanboy would. He noted that I didn't break the spine and lightly flipped the pages, the way a real fanboy would. When I placed the book back into the bag and sealed it the way a practiced collector should, his shield dropped.

"You collect?" He asked.

"Used to," I replied. "Had to liquidate when the dot-com crash happened."

"Bummer," he said. And we talked a bit more about what we both collected and were fans of. I brought up Akira.

"Akira?" he asked, as if to ask "You liked Akira best?"

"Yeah," I replied with a smile, and showed him my tattoo.

He stared at it blankly. "Like... The movie Akira?" he asked, confused.

"Yeah," I replied, "But also the comic." I told him about how it was one of two titles I kept the originals of, because I couldn't part with them - it took YEARS to seek out each and every Young Magazine issue, and I couldn't bear to let them go.

"Huh," he said.

"You ever read it?" I asked.

"No," he said. "Didn't even know about it."

I blinked; stunned.

I blinked again, even more stunned than I was when I blinked the first time.

With my mouth hanging open, I attempted to ask, "Really?"

"No," he said.

Heh... Fanboy indeed.

I'm headed to the shop itself today, before the wedding. I want to check the place out... See if it actually lives up to the name. But more than that, I want SOMETHING to do for the next 5 hours while this tropical storm annihilates the coast and makes being at the beach somewhat useless.

** Update 4:30 PM **

Store is staffed by jerks. Fine selection, but the staff - of which there were 4 - were completely uninterested in helping any of us. When engaged, they gave short, one word answers (unless the answer absolutely required more than one word, at which point they went out of their way to make sure to use as few words as absolutely necessary to answer the question).

Bonus - all 4 of them looked like Rivers Cuomo from Weezer. And that's not a compliment.

Rear window audio

noreply@blogger.com (JtP) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 18:42:00 +0000

this is a reflective subtitle system in a movie theater. You wear glasses with a mirror on them to read the subs if you're hearing impaired. I thought that was pretty neat.

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Beachy

noreply@blogger.com (JtP) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 15:18:00 +0000

Tropical depression forming off the coast... Kicking the surf up. First break in the rain since I got here. Kinda peaceful...

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The 15-year tattoo, part 5

noreply@blogger.com (JtP) — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 00:14:00 +0000

After a month hiatus from the tattoo parlor (well, from Todo actually since he was in California for a while... I wasn't on hiatus from the parlor, since Jeremiah did a piece on my leg a few weeks ago), the Akira sleeve is once again in progress.

Here's the bits from last night and today. The forearm and upper arm pieces will be connected through the unified background next week. For now, they look like separate pieces, but they're all part of the same moment in the story (again, from the comics, not the anime).

A standalone portion of a building's structural pillar, grafitti'ed with a bloody "A" (for Akira's gang)

The iron rebar (the spindly things poking out the top) aren't colored in yet, because of the background work that's going in behind them. They will be next week.

The pillar has basically landed right on top of the most notable (and beautiful) thing from the entire Akira storyline, Kaneda's bike, and split it in half. Back half:

Front half:

Note: the front of the bike that you know and love is actually laying in chunks on the ground... or will be, next week when the wrist is finished :)

Portions of the military's attempt to restore order to the city right before Akira went off are evident in the foreground. We've only gotten to the tank so far:

To give a sense of what it's all coming together as, here's a few shots of the whole arm:

Tattitude

noreply@blogger.com (JtP) — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 18:54:00 +0000

I just got back from Publix.

I love Publix. They have a fantastic deli department, their subs are always delicious, and they sell gallons of Splenda-sweetened tea for cheap. I would live in Publix, if it weren't for the fact that Publix doesn't have my sweet office setup and massage chair. If they did though, I'd be totally living there, like totally.

Anyway.

Checking out with my 4 gallons of tea and some gum, I entered into a dialogue with one of the long-time checkout people there about the content of the various gossip rags they carry at the registers, when suddenly, the old and sweet lady bagging my tea and gum began giggling with delight.

"Your arm!" she said. "It looks like a christmas tree!"

I smiled. "It kinda does, doesn't it?" I offered.

She just laughed and laughed. "That's great!" she said. "can I see the rest?"

I lifted my left sleeve and showed her the half-sleeve tattoo that has accumulated on my arm.

"Wow!" she said. "I bet that took a long time!"

"About 18 hours so far," I replied.

"Wow!" she said, laughing more. She was so sweet and so jovial. "So when do you take it off?"

"Uh," I said, smiling as I thought she was just joking. "Never, they're my permanent pajamas!"

"Never?" she said. "Not even to shower?"

I looked at the checkout clerk with a bit of confusion, as if to ask if the woman was just joking, or if she was senile. He kinda wrinkled his nose and turned to her and said, "it's a tattoo, Irma..."

"Tattoo?" she asked.

"Yes," he said. "It's permanent. It doesn't come off."

She looked at him with confusion. She then looked at me with an equal amount of the same. "Never?"

"Nope," I said with a smile.

She blinked. "Wow," she said, and just stared at it.

"Have... Uh... Have you never seen a tattoo before?" I asked.

"Don't think I have..." she said, with a bit of a frown.

I looked at the clerk again. "Is she serious?" I asked him.

"Probably," he replied. "This is her first ever job... She doesn't get out much, I think."

We finished the transaction, and as I was grabbing my bagged groceries, I bid them both a fond adieu.

"Can I ask you something?" Irma asked.

"Sure," I replied.

"Why would you DO that to yourself?" She asked this with a sneer, as if she was my mother (well, not MY mother, because when my mother sneers and asks such a question, it's usually with much more volume, adding an object of medium weight flying through the air).

I wanted to explain to her how expressive the artwork is and how beautiful it is and how much it means to me, both the allegory in the tattoo and the tattoo itself.

Then, I felt like i'd be wasting my time, so I wanted to say "Because I like it."

Then, I began to feel some disdain for her disapproval, so I wanted to be a smartass and say "It was a bet, and I won, muahahaha!"

Then, I got angry. I wanted to bark at her and yell "Hey old lady, why the fuck do you even care? Manage your own life, I'll manage mine."

I ended up just saying, "Hey, different strokes, right?"

She just tisked at me and went back to work.

I left without another word said.

I'm not sure I'd even be bothered to think about it if she simply disapproved... I think it was the fact that she didn't even know what the hell it was and still disapproved that got me so engaged. You do things in your life, knowing that you'll end up taking some shit for doing them but that the shit'll be worth it... You know, going in, that the shit you'll take won't even bother you. But sometimes, it comes at such an odd angle from such an unassuming source, you can't help but react.