Assume The Position

How much are you willing to put up with? Is 50% not too much, cause they can make it higher. Oh, and they WILL make it higher. Just remain calm and continue paying. You don't want to be dead or in jail now do you? Didn't think so. So keep that money coming in, keep up that milk production. Their hands do not tire of squeezing, the tendons are like hydraulic pistons. The pistons are lubricated with your toil, with the value you bring to the world. They will take your worth and forge it into chains and you will fucking cheer about it. That one over there, he is not cheering about his chains, lynch him! We need some more buckets over here, we found a new teat to suck. Oh and the milk is so sweet!

Jerking My Chain

Legacy Evidence: More liberal, cool designs rejected, conservative ones accepted

My Legacy Practice: Submit more conservative designs

Their New Directive: New Design Desired! I don't know what, just something new.

My New Practice: Apprehensively design a variety of moderately more liberal designs.

Their Next Suggestion: Not radical enough! "I WANT TO GET YOU TO THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX!" -Direct quote from management

My New Practice: Design cool, balanced new designs which are both conservative and liberal at the same time and which I am proud of.

Their Next Suggestion: Looks good, but try one version with a SLIGHT alteration to the legacy design

Final analysis: All new designs REJECTED, please continue to "develop" the SLIGHT alteration version.

!!!FUCK!!!

Evil Never Dies - The Return Of Muzak

MUZAK IS BACK!!! Like Sauron after losing his ring, (or Voldemort for that matter) the evil of Muzak (not really, some other kind of piped-in music) has only laid dormant at WKW Publications Dept., and not actually been vanquished. A new speaker of doom has been installed high above the drop ceiling, spreading its vile vibrations of wretched pop music. It is such a vulgar intrusion, such a violation of privacy, a hostile takeover of one's peace of mind! Although it is not pointing at me, the increased volume caused by this new evil speaker in concert with the standard metallic speaker in the lunchroom makes for a far more apparent level of acoustic noise.

Mr. Sad Pear is sad once again. But he is practicing his War Face…

Now I have to reach for the salve of headphones\earbuds and iTunes. Hey, I love listening to MY music, but usually when I want to, and not just to drown out some omnipresent ambient cacophony of mainstream dreck! The fan noise masks some of it, but of course there is NO escape once I leave the confines of my office. Although not evil in an objective sense, Muzak is the next most evil thing in the subjective realm. It just pisses me off that the useful PA is tied in with the Muzak. That's just cruel.

I remember my old job - crammed in a small room with a Muzak speaker directly overhead. If it were not for the gracious wall-mounted volume knob that situation would have been like a non-lethal poison gas shower. Can you imagine such horrors?

If I were smart I would have concocted a plan which would make it easy to quit my job at any moment. Just imagine having the financial freedom to tell your employer where to stick it. Instead I have to put up with this Muzak shit because the alternative is worse. But that does not stop me from fantasizing about smashing the amplifier with an axe, or getting a ladder and cutting the wires. What's wrong with us? Why do we need constant noise!?

Unrealistic Beauty Standards Revealed

The following image may shock you, but it reveals the depths to which the depraved cretins in the model railroading industry will sink to portray an unrealistic standard of beauty for plastic HO scale figures.

For years plastic figures have had their self-esteem calculated solely by their similarity in appearance to the celebrity plastic figures shown in magazines and advertisements. They thought these figures were the highest standard of beauty, and since they couldn't live up to such attractiveness, their most precious self-esteem has been lowered by approximately 0.275 esteemons per year.

But this is merely a deception, because the celebrity figures we so adore are not what they seem. Sure, they may be above average in hunkiness factor, but they have had the help of digital manipulations! Lies! Photoshoppery! Do not believe these charlatans!

You may look just as good as the moderately handsome plastic figure in the Before photo, but you are made to believe that such adonis-like specimens in the After photo actually exist when it is merely a pixelated deception!

Sorry For My English

I think certain native English speakers, namely the dolts who use horrible text-messaging shorthand to express their vapid thoughts, ought to take a lesson from non-native English speakers and politely apologize at the beginning or end of every moronic post.

So instead of:

"lmfao this vid. if fucking helarious"

How about:

"lmfao this vid. if fucking helarious sorry for my english"

That way they at least admit they suck. A small courtesy if nothing else. Since it's apparently too much to ask to actually care about what you write, or to take the smallest amount of effort to pen a coherent thought, this concession would be a nice substitute. Normally you see someone from France, Japan, Germany or wherever end or begin their posts with a gracious "Sorry for my English" which is often overstated because usually their English is just fine. This is not the case with the average teenage blockhead from middle America who is FAR more deserving of such an apology\disclaimer.

"srry 4 my englsh, i am only 17 yrs old from iowa wit a decade of skooling in english but ur totalay a fag if U think taht is kewl u natzi looser!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

(No offense to Iowa, I just picked a state.)

Living The Dream

I don't think it's truly healthy to actually have idols or role models that you look up to or want to emulate. But that feeling is still there. It would be wrong to want to pattern your own life off someone else, but sometimes you see a template that you wish you had so badly. Todd Schorr is such a person for me. It didn't take a whole lot of convincing evidence either, just a couple of videos and a blurb on a website.

Todd Schorr is living the artist's dream. This guy does what he wants, sells what he wants and makes a living doing it. What else can you ask for? He does commissioned paintings, but HE suggests to the patron what HE wants to do! That's so AWESOME! He said he will make one sketch of an idea for a painting, present it to the client and if they don't like it that's the end of it. THAT is true liberty, THAT is true power! Can you imagine such freedom? It's insane.

Just read this glorious FAQ from his site ww.toddschorr.com It makes me grin from ear to ear:

FAQ

1. Please do not ask if there is a print available that does not appear among the listings on the prints page. If it is not offered, it is not available. The availability of new prints and limited editions will be announced on the website as they become available.

2. I do not accept illustration work or commercial assignments. Existing images may be licensed for a fee depending on usage.

3. I do not accept “commissions.” The only commissions I work on are projects that I propose to interested select patrons.

4. All of the artworks that appear on my website are sold and reside in private and public collections. I do not have any artwork for sale. All inquiries regarding original artwork for sale must be directed to the galleries that handle my art. The availability of new work will be announced on the website as future gallery shows are scheduled.

Okay, so maybe there is a bit of middle man in there with galleries, but that still is miles removed from any top-down bureaucratic crap in the commercial art world. How fucking awesome is this guy's life? It's unbelievable!

You can easily get 50% of this equation without any problem. You can do exactly the art you want in your free time with no problem. But to actually have a market, to actually have enough people with enough money that they are willing to part with; enough to actually pay the bills of living, THAT is something which almost seems supernatural to me. That's like living in Lothlorien fer cryin' out loud.

Todd Schorr just fucking rules. More power to him and anyone like him.

If that's not enough he's got a cute wife and is a dead ringer for Gordon Freeman. (Todd, not his wife that is)

Schadenfreude

An empty celebration no doubt, but it still FEELS good. It doesn't mean morons stopped wanting to pay for obnoxious public music, it doesn't mean they're going out of business, but dammit I feel like celebrating anyway. Don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out!

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Music/02/11/muzak.bankruptcy/?iref=mpstoryview

Mister Sad Pear, chin up! Your time has come!

And We're Dissin' Them

"Forced out - brave and mighty
Stolen land - they cant fight it
Hold on - to pride and tradition
Even though they know how much
Their lives are really missin'
and we're dissin them
On reservations
A hopeless situation"

How are we, as listeners of Anthrax, to interpret this line in regards to Native Americans\Indians? We as a society are dissin' the Indians and that is bad, or we as in Anthrax are dissin' the indians for not standing up for themselves? I always thought there was some ambiguity there. It seemed like a pro-Indian message overall, but that dissin' line I always took to mean a criticism directed at the indians, but perhaps not.