I’m a busy man . . . Busy with menial trivialities!
My life is dominated, each afternoon, from Monday to Thursday from four pee-em until eight forty-five with a high-level Crafts Art Studio course. Thusfar, from my experience in this course, I rate the following crafting techniques as follows:
1. Bead-weaving with “Continual Warp” on a Copper Loom: 56% Failure Rating. Perhaps it’s my horrible, horrible eyesight, perhaps it’s threading tiny, Czech beads with a thin needle with slender fibers, but . . . Eh, I’m not so fond of this art, so far. Also, it doesn’t help that I
will take half an hour to merely thread the needle. This is not my thing, as it were.
2. Batik: 17% FR. I am a large (physically
and figuratively) fan of printmaking and forms of art that involve constructing and deconstructing images via methods of blocking/masking. Never worked much with dyes, but I have found this somewhat time-consuming (forty to fifty minutes per dye) art to be enjoyable, and I am quite proud of my first product.
3. Tapestry-weaving with “Continual Warp” on a Copper Loom: 39% FR. See my above commentary on the bead-weaving to know why this is not my forte, except, this time, going over-under, over-under, over-under, over-fucking-under with a larger needle and nearly invisible (to me) thread. I will say, being instructed on a technique in art by its
creators is neat, though—the class had them as special guest artists, and they’re very amusing and nice ladies who invented the copper-pipe loom. Madness, there, but, still . . . Threading needles. It’s a
weaving needle and it takes me ten minutes to thread it.
4. Papermaking: ? FR. I have no idea what this technique is, because I fell asleep in class yesterday. And, now, a convenient segue to the next topic . . .
I fell asleep in class, because I stayed up until two in the morning playing
Narfell. In case you are not, in fact, big into the Neverwinter Nights community (which I imagine you aren’t, as my primary reader is my dad), then you haven’t heard of Narfell . . . Unless you are familiar enough with the Forgotten Realms to recognize it as the name of one of the countries. Right, anyway, so it’s a Persistent Story World server, plus emphasis on roleplaying—and by emphasis, I mean “either roleplay or leave, fucker” policy—that is one of the most awesome communities of people on the internet in existence. It’s like playing tabletop, without the hassle of associating with real, in-the-flesh people! 3% Failure Rating.
A lot of music, I have been listening to, ye-e-e-es. Learn well to use the Force, you will, young Padawan.
1. Strung Out’s
An American Paradox: 11% Failure Rating. I’ve always held a special place in my heart (
aww-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w!) for Strung Out, because they’re the band that lead me into the punk scene, back in my Suburban Teenage Wasteland years (note: clever reference to other album by artist, be amused). Also, lately, I’ve just had a particular taste for angry, white guys screaming at me, backed up by hard, metal/punk instrumentals. Fun stuff.
2. Strung Out’s
The Elements of Sonic Defiance: 15% FR. An EP that they released between
Twisted By Design and
An American Paradox, I pirated the whole thing (
gasp!) way back when, but finally bought it . . . Because I support musicians, or whatever. I thought I would’ve rounded out my Strung Out collection with these two albums, but then I saw that they released another album,
Exile In Oblivion, which I now must buy. Hopefully, it won’t be as mopey as the title suggests. Oh, and, yes, the EP in question rocks and is awesome and so forth and so on, the spouting of positivism plus platitudes and the hurting and the “Ow!” Nice la-a-a-dy.
Jerry Lewis: 77% Failure Rating.
I dropped more money than I, pragmatically speaking,
should have on picking up all the volumes of
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex that are out. The seventh and final one is not yet released, so I am unaware of how this wraps up—does it follow the original manga, the first movie or a variant of its own, this is a question for which I await an answer. I could spew compliments about Ghost in the Shell, but I will suffice by saying two things: it is so well-executed that I hold nearly everything cinematic ever up to it for comparison, and 1% Failure Rating.
This has been a somewhat update on the life and times of me. Care.
