Bored

I think it was originally my teacher, and later my mother that used to tell me only boring people get bored. And i am so bored. And so very boring right now. Other than marathoning Star Trek Deep Space Nine for the last three weeks, the most exciting thing that has happened was my brother butt dialed me on Sunday.

But I've decided to go do something tomorrow. Anything. I don't know yet, but it will involve the need to wear pants. Something I've been sorely lacking for the last month or so. Maybe I'll go be one of those dweebs at the coffee shop writing a novel. I mean, why not? I've put in job applications to everywhere that will give me one so my days are mostly just filled with waiting to go to sleep again.

Grah. I wish I was still a teenager and satisfied with playing video games all day.

Technical Difficulties and Subtle Sexism

So once I get my camera and computer on speaking terms again, I will make up for the lack of posts this week.

In the mean time I thought I'd share with you a great example of what I mean when I talk about the subtle sexism that permeates our society. And since a picture is worth a thousand words, here's a two thousand word essay on the subject:

Japanese Cover to a Star Wars book

At first glance, you're probably thinking "what sexism?" There are two Jedi here prepared for battle and the woman (Mara) is actually wearing clothes. But...

Altered cover submitted to Escher Girls by nelc

Would you look at that. Suddenly Mara looks more like she's ready for battle and less like she's dancing. And Luke when from Jedi master to cheesecake. Huh.

This along with many others of terrible portrayal of women in media can be found on Escher Girls, a tumblr dedicated to "...female characters in impossible or ridiculous poses or with disturbing anatomy because the artist needed to show teh sexy."

Experience

Recently, due to lack of better things to do with my day, I've been watching a lot of anime with a friend of mine. We've been rewatching a lot of series I saw oh so many years ago in high school when I was first introduced to anime, including Chobits and Trigun.

I so very distinctly remember when I first saw those cartoons, wishing I could draw so well. Now that I've been through art school, oh. my. gosh. There are so many things that are just wrong. And I've come to realize I hate cell shading, I much prefer flats and a higher frame rate to 'shadow'. The biggest problem with anime is  the low frame rate, programs often use one still image and just animate the mouth. This means the characters have zero facial expressions. Which is why the voice acting always sounds terrible. I used to think it was English dubbing, but no, I realized the reason it seems so terrible sometimes is because it is extremely difficult to match voice emotion when every character looks like they just came from a botox appointment.

Dominique the Cyclops, how do your shoulders work? This makes no anatomical sense. Seriously, try and imagine her body under the clothes. Creepy as all get up, right?

If it wasn't for hairstyle, all the women in this picture would look exactly the same. They are one wig shop adventure away from a hilarious mistaken identity episode.

It's not that I don't like anime now, although I think I have a distinct preference for American animation over Japanese as far as character design, attention to detail and acting (facial expressions help so much). It just that my eyes, and judgement have changed with experience and I find that so interesting. Culture may extol the benefits of youth (particularly for women), but I wouldn't go backwards for anything. Mostly because I am less of an idiot as I grow older and I'm quite proud of that.

Random Word Generated Fridays: Contradiction

Aaahh contradiction. One of my favorite things to do. I think a lot of people around me believe I do it to be argumentative or that I enjoy playing the devil's advocate. My reasons for being contrary most of the time is it makes people think. There are dozens of ways to get people's gears turning without getting them hot under the collar, but I don't find them nearly as effective or quick then making them argue their point.

This is a tactic my professors often used in art school. They always would rip apart a students work so they would have to defend their decisions. This quickly weeded out artists who would just stick their pencil to paper and start drawing without a plan. Which is a hint. Good artists always plan. A painting is a well thought out idea at it's very birth.

Of course now I have difficulty saying the word without a faux Scottish accent thanks to the Starburst commercials.

Adventure Day: Nine Days Without Coffee

Alright, so not exactly the photo essay of the awesome places I explore I usually give you but it was an adventure. As stated in my post "Caffeine Withdrawal" I gave up caffeine for nine days because, well, I was having problems. It went a little something like this:

Day 1: Well. This isn't so bad. No symptoms as of yet. Maybe I was over-attributing my headaches to the coffee. It could have been stress. Oh well, I'll just keep going since it's probably a healthy idea to detox the caffeine in my system anyways.

Day 2: AAAAAAAAAAAAA! The PAIN. This is the MOTHER OF ALL HEADACHES EVER. WHY? WHY! WHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHY!!!!!!!

Day 3: I hurt everywhere. What the &$#%! was I thinking? Who does this to themselves? Me. That's who. I'm a &$#%! idiot.

Day 4: Silent weeping when I realize my pain relief medicine has caffeine in it.

Day 5: I lost this day somewhere. I seriously went to sleep Tuesday and woke up Thursday or something. No idea what happened to Wednesday. None.

Day 6: I should clean the kitchen. No. Wait. The bathroom. LET'S GO FOR A WALK! My laundry needs to be done. OOO! KITTY! Hey! What's that shiny thing? LOOK AT THIS MAGNIFICENT ROCK. LOOK AT IT! Did I leave the stove on? (The answer was yes, yes I did...derp)

Day 7: Woke up, walked down stairs, took nap on couch. Woke up, ate bowl of cereal, took another nap. Woke up, watched TV, took nap. Woke up, went to bed.

Day 8: 36 hours 21 minutes and 30 seconds until I can have coffee again...36 hours 21 minutes and 29 seconds until I can have coffee again...36 hours 21 minutes and 28 seconds until I can have coffee again...

Day 9: Maybe if I play video games all day I won't notice HOW SLOW TIME SEEMS TO BE PASSING

Day 10: COFFEE MY LOVE! Let us never be apart again <3

I never want to go through that again. Never. It was awful. The most surprising thing is that even when the symptoms of withdrawal subsided, I still wanted coffee. I did not realize how much a part of my life the drink had become, often substituting a large cup of java for meals or using it as a motivational tool to get something done like chores or homework. Even as I sit here typing this I am being kept company by a travel mug of coffee.

Although I will probably never quite again for anything short of religious or medical reasons, I am moderating my intake of caffeine now. I'm giving up the Diet Coke permanently along with most other caffeinated sodas (the exception being Taco Bell's Baja Blast Mountain Dew because, delicious) and am only brewing one 32  oz pot of regular a day with decaf coffee making itself a new staple in my pantry. I learned a lot about myself during this experiment and probably a lot about addiction.

This Ain't Yo' Momma's House: The Myth of Later

There are a lot of things about keeping house that I learned when I acquired a household of my own. Tips and tricks for making chores easier, things look cleaner and stretch budgets further. The single most important thing I learned though, was the myth of later.

As a teen I was constantly frustrated when my parents would hassle me to do the dishes or mow the lawn. It wasn't like I wasn't planning to do it, I just didn't want to right then. I would do it later, after I read one more chapter or wrote one more poem (yeah, I was one of those teens) or beat the water-temple.

When I moved into my first apartment, one of the things I was excited about was being able to do my chores when I wanted to. There is a fatal logic flaw there. I could wait a million years and I will never want to do chores. There will always be a more interesting book, exciting video game or sardonic couplet to pursue.

Dishes piled in the sink, cobwebs collected in the corner, laundry splayed all over the floor. Sure, once in awhile I would realize I was living in a sty and go on a cleaning binge, but it was not a consistent state. I was not alone in this affliction. I have seen houses where 'later' never comes. Dishes that have been in the sink so long civilizations have risen and fallen subsiding off of 6 month old chicken dinner. Bathtubs mold has eaten away the caulk and now the wall behind is rotting away. Toilets literally covered in crap. Still, the people living in these conditions continue to lie to themselves: "I'll do it later."

I finally realized I was lying to myself about later (after I learned to identify exactly what rotten chicken smells like). Chores are something you have to plan to do weekly. For me, that means setting a day for it. Adding it to the schedule with definite time and date instead of the nebulous "later". Granted this usually means things like vacuuming when I run out of underwear and have to do laundry and cleaning the bathroom on garbage day for me since I don't do the calendar date thing so well, but it's a specific moment.

So this is my first housekeeping advice to my fellow twenty-somethings: "Later" is a lie. Unlike the cake. The cake is delicious.

Georgia

Voice Recorder >>

So I got introduced to this website recently and have been sending songs back and forth with a friend because we're dorks. I thought I would share my wonderful and off-key voice with you people because I know my audience. My audience is my mom. (Hi Mom!)

On a related note, I need some suggestions for new artist crushes. Heck, I'll even take guest articles at this point. If ya'll could hook me up with links to someone who's artwork makes you go "Hngh" it would be much appreciated!

Caffeine Withdrawal

As some of you know (and the rest of you do now too, yay!) I decided to do a little caffeine detox starting Thursday. The reason behind this is it was taking two pots of coffee and several cans of Diet Coke just to stave off the headache.

First stop was a little research. Caffeine stays active in the system for six hours, but withdrawal symptoms can last anywhere between 2 and 9 days. I decided to cut the java cold turkey for nine days.

I had no idea how hard it is to not drink coffee. Even without the negative side effects of not ingesting my daily dose of java it's hard to go without it in the morning. There's nothing like the flavor or aroma, and there fore no replacement.

So far I'm on day four. It isn't fun, but it's getting better. I'll be back with a full nine-day report when I finish this little dietary experiment. But until the headaches, inability to focus and joint pain go away (all withdrawal symptoms. Fun, right?) I doubt I'll be getting very many blog posts in. Not any coherent ones at any rate.