You Know I Want To Do It Again

So I have made a terrible, terrible mistake. I have done... a terrible thing. Never should I have strayed to Newegg.com. That was... that was a bad decision, and now I'm reaping my dark harvest of suffering. It's like I was trying to bring down a scalding rain of misery.

I need a new computer. My mom is going to order some RAM to make my Laptop functional, however... this is not enough. This is enough that I will be able to run Photoshop without turning my motherboard into a pool of molten silicon. However, as a not-so-closet nerd, I am very likely to need some Gaming performance, and you don't get that in a Laptop. You just don't.

Now the computer I built on Newegg for $1,097.96... that could work. That would work. That would be freaking amazing. It would have... a lot of very nice things. And at the prices Newegg offers, I could actually keep it up to date. This is terrible. This is a very bad thing that has happened here. I am going to be miserable for at least 4 hours thinking about this.

In non-nerd news, I'm getting run ragged here. And I have to admit, I may be loving it. I'm challenged... really challenged, for the first time in a long time. This is hard but it's exhilarating! I'm liking learning again, and it's intense. Experimenting and not worrying if the result is total shit. This is really building up my confidence, helping me loosen up. I'm always about a minute away from passing out... but for peace of mind... I'd stay this way for ever.

~Chow

I Never Asked For Ordinary

I'm about to begin the recovery period from today. It has been a long, hard day, but a rewarding one, I must say. Art, Love, Work, Love, Art. It plays out the same in both directions.

I was exploring Spray Paint as a medium today, for my class tomorrow. I am so woefully low on options that I can really use, so this is what it comes to. It has been interesting, and the work sucks, but it's about learning the media, not making a masterpiece. If I can add this to my repertoire then that's one more solution to a potential problem.

Today was a good day for telling people I love them, in a meaningful way.

I learned a lot today, hopefully tomorrow will be as good.

Exhaustion claims this post.

~Chow

If You Talk Too Much My Head Will Explode

August is in its last leg and I'm panting along side it. Just got to get over this hump and into the Brave New World of September. Hopefully I'll get more used to running again soon. Hopefully I'll have a new stinking job.

Visual Communications 01 was a marathon of wasting time today. There was an hour and half long discussion about the philosophy of mark making. Let me explain to you... we were making a philosophical issue of making marks... I... how... do... I... It was like a sophist's wet dream.

I'm about four minutes away from Image 01... the class that makes staying conscious so difficult. It's not that I'm disinterested in the subject matter, it's not that at all. It's that it seems to drag on at times, and I don't want to over run conversation, so I sit there fuming behind closed lips. Joy of joys!

I'm slowly picking through music on Pandora to buy on iTunes. I have about $12 left for songs. That's twelve songs. Competition is so very stiff, but make it I shall. Class beckons, so to it I meander.

~Chow

When I Like You It's Total Revenge

So our project today in Type 01 (Typography 01) was to create a monogram and a new letter for the alphabet. I have already made three letters and four monograms (we have a week and a half to create one of each). I am a linguiphile.

My first letter was "cha." It replaces the "ch" sound in English language (ie: change, charge, chicken, chumbawumba... etc). It's an easily replicated form, that is fairly distinct. It might be mistaken for an "m," but only if you have really poor penmanship.

My second letter was "tho" and it replaces, you guessed it, the "th" sound in English language (ie: that, them, thick, thin, thunder thighs, etc...). It is also an easily replicatable and yet distinct form. It could be mistaken for a "T" but only, again with bad penmanship.

My third and final letter is "Shu," and this time it's "sh" that's getting the ax (ie: shrimp, ship, shoot, shallow, sh*t, etc...). The form is that of an "O" with an "I" in the middle (two letters which are often used to make the "sh" sound anyway). Once more easily replicated, and again only poor penmanship will get it confused with other letters, this time an "O".

Also, now anyone can comment on the blog, so feel free to comment. What do you think of these designs?

~Chow

Mike's Webcomic's Shit-straveganza!

In the past decade, something amazing has happened on the internet. No, I'm not talking about blogs, Myspace, Facebook, or free porn. I'm talking about webcomics. These little jewels are separate from comic books and newspaper comics.

There are a ton of different types of Webcomics. The most common are gaming comics, like Penny-Arcade ,which averages 55 million pageviews a month, and PVP which really isn't too much of a gaming comic anymore, but is still fun. There are also roughly twenty-seven quadrillion knock offs of Penny-Arcade, half of which have been drawn by yours truly.

Another type is the quirky, romantic nerd comedy comics. The most well known of these is the immensely popular Questionable Content which is also good for music buffs. Another nerdy sometimes romance comic is XKCD which is perhaps the most indecipherable to the layperson comic I read.

An additional genre is the fantasy comic. The most popular of these is The Order of the Stick, which shares a site with Erfworld. Order of the Stick is good, but is updated only sporadically. Looking for Group is another comic I really enjoy in this group.

There are other comics, ones that are just funny without unifying genre. Two of my favorites there are Star Slip Crisis and Indexed. Both are hilarious and don't fit the other groups.

If You Talk Too Much My Head Will Explode

Sunday is the Sabbath, a day of rest. That has nothing to do with my not blogging then, but it's a nice sentiment. People always laugh at things like not working on Sunday, calling it stupid superstition. I happen to believe God knows us well, and knows we all need a break, but the only way to get us to take it, is to make us.

Today is Monday the Twenty-Seventh of August, 2007. Today, for the first time in near ages, nay eons, I ran in the morning. Zachary accompanied me, and we must have made for an amusing couple. I was in athletic shorts and a high school diversity t-shirt, with some nice running shoes. Zach was clunking along beside me in black pants and shirt and large semi-athletic shoes. The two of us were joking all the way till the last fourth, when we started feeling the oxygen deprivation in our wee little legs.

In other news, Bioshock is an excellent game, with very interesting dynamics. I don't know if it has the much lauded replay value everyone speaks of, but it was definitely a fun experience the first time through. I will say that it is possibly the most disturbing game I've ever played. When you see a man using death and human flesh as his media, you know you have reached a new level of depravity.

I just finished the workload for today in Visual Communications, which was surprisingly easy. But that was because it was hand made, and I do much better drawing than I do cutting out thin strips of news print and meticulously applying them to six and a half inch squares.

-Chow

You Brought Me To My Knees, Your Art

Lets talk about Herron. I was wrong, lets get that out right now. The in class stuff is interesting and even engaging at times, even if some of my class mates do make things drag out beyond all limits of reason. The work load is incredible. More than I've ever had before in my life. I have to make 55 pieces of art by Monday, write a 4 page paper by Friday, and have something for Tuesday that hasn't been assigned yet. May we call that intense?

So lets look at my assignment for Image 01. That's a course that is focused on making an image, and all that goes into it. Our assignment was to compose fifty 5 1/2 by 8 1/2 inch compositions. Each composition was to be composed entirely of a mark. Each mark had to be very different from all the others, in as many ways as reasonable. 30 of the marks had to be "natural." This was defined as meaning something I made with my hands, either directly, or by some hand held implement. 15 were to be mechanical/alternative, which was defined as any means that was not by hand or computer. Finally, 5 were to be by computer.

For the natural ones, I initially used as many "traditional" media as I could. Mechanical Pencil, 4B wooden pencil, vine charcoal, charcoal pencils, acrylic and oil paints with a variety of brushes. Then, when I had exhausted the traditional media in my apartment, I went to the stranger things. Ketchup, toothpaste, mustard, and the ink from a shattered pen. I even used the coloring from mashed plants.

For the mechanical ones, I have burned them, stepped on them and stamped them. I'm working them out as best I can. These ones are more difficult for many reasons... mostly involved around finding non repetitive mark making. It's only possible to make so many stamps, and finding things that actually make marks and aren't really media is hard. So it's a struggle.

The computer marks will be extremely easy. I have been using computer media for a long time. And I only need 5 different kinds.

The idea I've really taken hold of on these ones is to try to show as much of the potential for each media I use as possible. I vary pressure and density on every mark, as much as possible. I'll load up some pictures later, so you guys can see how it goes.

Everymorning There's A Halo

A looming issue is emerging for me. That is the release of Halo 3 in about a month's time. I have purchased and X-box 360 Elite ($700) and a 32 inch LCD HDTV ($600) for no better purpose than to make this game ridiculous for me. I am accutely aware, in my rare lucid moments, that $1300 is a fairly ludicrous amount of money to spend on a game. (For the record, I went halvsies with Zach on all this stuff, I don't think he knows it's all for Halo 3, and am paying him back in both things purchased, and services rendered)

My first year at my first college, the illustrious Vincennes University, was nearly ruined by Halo 2. X-box Live made it possible for me to blow other people into steaming hunks of garbage at any hour, and I took full advantage. There were seriously nights were I was playing at... 3am... and I had class at 9am the next day. I was not... shall we say... aware of moderation.

So now we have this third one coming, promising to be as good as the first two combined. And I have to ask myself, should I just drop out now? Is that how this is going to go? I hope not, and I doubt it. It's just something that is worrisome. I know I would not be the first to succumb to Halo's enthralling nature.

Lets Start This Off Right

At 8:56am, Wednesday the 22nd of August in the year (of our dear blessed lord) 2007, I started my tenure at the prestigious Herron School of Art and Design. HSAD is a part of the not so prestigious Indiana University-Purdue University of Indianapolis, affectionately dubbed by the locals "IUPUI" (which is often phonetically pronounced "oo-ee-poo-ee").

I am a "Visual Communications" major, which is a very special way of saying I will make pictures that say things. I have found that people in a certain field will do anything to obfuscate their profession, because we tend to have a healthy respect for that which we do not understand. Thusly, we give "artists" more respect than "painters", even though, in the grand scheme of things, they are same. (also: more respect for "philosophers" than "thinkers", and "politicians" than "bullsh*tters") But as I am wont to do, I digress.

I came to Herron with the full expectation of being completely unprepared, out of my league, and bound for years of uphill struggle. Despite my nervousness, I was looking forward to this. Thus far... I have been disappointed. I am dissapointed because I am every bit as prepared as my peers here, and entirely within my league. I may be bound for uphill struggle, but it will be at my own prodding and not because of some sort of institutional might.

I say thus far, because it is now 8:35am on Thursday, August the twenty-fourth, year (of our dear blessed lord) 2007. And so, I am roughly 25 minutes from starting my SECOND day at Herron. With hope, it will be at least as satisfying as yesterday, and hopefully more.

-Chow