Self-Medicating

Painkiller - Freestylers feat. Pendulum and SirReal

see we work hard
play hard
man i gotta stay charged
can't sleep
tired out
trouble on my radar
running round live wire
had another red bull
everybody running baby
let me come and get a pull
isn't it incredibile
that i'm even still awake
still alive
still i take
poison that rebilitates
fuck a little line
we can go ahead and kill a case
living in a killer state
maybe thats a good excuse
see me taking shots at the bar
like i'm bullet proof
now my belly full of juice
i'm walking everyday
wiv a bruised lip
battered eye
beat up state liver..

i'm reaching in my cupboard for a painkiller uh uh uh
i need another painkiller
reachin in my cupboed for a painkiller uh uh uh
i need another painkiller
they call it painkiller
let it go
painkiller uh uh uh
i need another painkiller
reaching in my cupboard for a painkiller uh uh uh
i need another painkiller
they call it painkiller
let it go


now we live fast
die young
wish i'd never tried none
saturated chemical
but i dont wanna die mum
maybe you could try some
no point wasting it
first there was a little bit
but now i got my face in it
run around chasing it
everything is so hot
everybody screw faced
looking like so what
pressure and it won't stop
pushing up my heart rate
arguments and attitude
mate you don't wanna stop me
listen bruva cant wait
now i gotta close this
woke up shivvering
and swimming in my own piss
its just my own risk
a real brain splitter

i'm reaching in my cupboard for a painkiller uh uh uh
i need another painkiller
reachin in my cupboed for a painkiller uh uh uh
i need another painkiller
they call it painkiller
let it go
painkiller uh uh uh
i need another painkiller
reaching in my cupboard for a painkiller uh uh uh
i need another painkiller
they call it painkiller
let it go

Don't Stop - Innerpartysystem

This is one of the best car videos I've seen.

Music is post title. Really cool stuff.

Adventures in used American Vehicles

(11:21:26 PM) Dexter: mmm
(11:21:31 PM) Dexter: I smell like burnt car
(11:21:47 PM) Aaron: that's kind of what happens when your car catches on fire
(11:21:50 PM) Dexter: yeah
(11:21:58 PM) Dexter: I hear that this smell is hard to get out

'Nuff said.

Webcomics and their unnerving accuracy

So this may be why I haven't gotten any writing done

Oh, Sinfest.

Carnival: Over

And it was a very successful one. 2nd place booth, 2:21 buggy time, as well as Chairman's Choice. Awesome.

But now, things are winding down. I have final papers to work through, but they aren't unmanageable. I have a final, but that won't be too bad. All in all, I'm so close to being done.

I have some ideas for the summer. I may try my hand at some freelancing. I'm a good writer, and have a decent range of experience with technical work, as well as semi-creative copy. There's some site online where I can try my hand at this...make a few bucks of beer money, who knows. It'll help pass the time while I continue my job search.

The job search isn't going badly...I'd say I'm at about a 50-50 chance of having something before graduation, and maybe 75% chance of having something by summer's end if I maintain my search rate. I know recruiting season is ending, but I'm going to be persistent. I'm also expanding my options, and seeing if maybe I can join a rock band instead of getting a real job. Ha ha.

I like being close. It actually seems in reach now.

To Say Goodbye is to Die a Little

The power of money becomes very difficult to control. Man has always been a venal animal. The growth of populations, the huge costs of wars, the incessant pressure of taxation- all these things make him more and more venal. The average man is tired and scared, and a tired, scared man can't afford ideals. He has to buy food for his family. In our time we have seen a shocking decline in both private and public morals. You can't expect quality from people whose lives are a subjection to a lack of quality. You can't have quality with mass production. You don't want it because it lasts too long. So you substitute styling, which is a commercial swindle intended to produce artificial obsolescence. Mass production couldn't sell its goods next year unless it made what it sold this year look unfashionable a year from now. We have the whitest kitchens and the most shining bathrooms in the world. But in the lovely white kitchen the average American housewife can't produce a meal fit to eat, and the lovely shining bathroom is mostly a receptacle for deodorants, laxatives, sleeping pills, and the products of that confidence racket called the cosmetic industry. We make the finest packages in the world, Mr. Marlowe. The stuff inside is mostly junk.

...

We don't have mobs and crime syndicates and goon squads because we have crooked politicians and their stooges in the City Hall and legislatures. Crime isn't a disease, it's a symptom. Cops are like the doctor who gives you aspirin for a brain tumor, except that the cop would rather cure it with a blackjack. We're a big rough rich wild people and crime is the price we pay for it, and organized crime is the price we pay for organization. We'll have it with us a long time. Organized crime is just the dirty side of the sharp dollar.

I read The Long Goodbye today. It was much longer than The Big Sleep, and also slower. The result was a book of meaty characters, a good hit of drama as well as suspense, and the best fucking plot twist ever. I could even say that The Long Goodbye is the best novel I have ever read. I may regret that after class tomorrow, but I may not. Chandler is an absolutely fantastic writer, and it's quite clear to me why others emulated him, and why his name is the one most commonly cast on the boilerplate of hardboiled detective fiction.
The quotes above are from Harlan Potter in chapter 32, and Philip Marlowe in Chapter 48, respectively. Chandler's view on the world is quite cynical, and that's probably why I like it. And to drive the whole thing home, after two novels of his bluntness, his demeanor, and his outlook, I can say with fair confidence that Philip Marlowe is a character I empathize with in a very significant way.
Hell of a book.

I've been typecast

Rough cut of a friend's film project

Fucking awesome, but just proves I've been typecast as a nerd. Probably the only film in which I fire a rocket launcher, though.

Neuromancer

I just finished Neuromancer, again. But I think I got it this time.
The book hurts my head. The ending, Case as a character, so many things ring too close. The entire journey rings existential in an uncomfortably familiar way.

But, even if I don't read my other books for comparative analysis, I already know I'm going to own this paper. Neuromancer is hardboiled, without a doubt. It's all there: implied distrust for authority, the police, and the established order, the locational awareness of the writing, the 'smooth operator' main character, and an ending in which the protagonist succeeds, though in a hollow and possibly superficial way. Gibson actually kneaded that into you at the end, when Wintermute says "Things aren't different. Things are things."
There are clear stylistic considerations which give nods to Chandler's style of writing, but Case as a character owes more to Sam Spade, in my opinion. He has an emotional profile much closer to that of Spade, though there is one aberration where Case deviates from either Marlowe or Spade: Case is more self-interested than either, though this can be argued based on the way the book ends. It can go several ways, really, and if you really wanted to dig into the Chandler angle, you could even argue that Case's relationship with Wintermute takes on similar hallmarks to the relationship between Marlowe and General Sternwood in The Big Sleep. Based on the order of events in the story, it's difficult to tell exactly how self-interested Case is, since he gets paid after completing the job, though it's implied earlier that he would have gotten his pancreas fixed regardless at a certain point.
The book affected me profundly when I first read it, and it has again now, to a nearly surprising degree. I read it with much more patience this time around, and got to really see and understand the depth in all the characters, not just Case, but Molly and Armitage also, at the very least. Rereading the book gave me a fuller appreciation for Gibson as an author, and the cyberpunk genre as a whole.

Nocturnal?

This weekend has had me with the most fucked up sleep schedule ever. Despite that, I feel like I came out better than I went in.

Formal was Saturday night. I had a lot of fun, and was very glad I went, despite the angst that front-loaded the process.
For that and other reasons, I was up until 4 last night, slept two hours before buggy, then went back to bed at 10am and woke up around 4:30pm. Hence the post name. Going to bed tonight may be very difficult...but after suffering through tomorrow, I think I'll be back on track. At least until buggy next week.

Other things...
Saw Fast and Furious with Dexter. There were some entertaining bits, and some very pretty cars. Don't get me wrong, though: the movie was terrible.

Started rereading Neuromancer for my 'hardboiled' English class. Reading it again, with a better critical eye and more patience than my 9th grade self has led me to the conclusion that the novel is indeed brilliant, and deserving of all the praise it got. Damn Gibson needed to learn how to write scene transitions, but if you give it the patience it needs, the story and the twists and the characters are all sublime.

Webcomics in a nutshell

From "Least I Could Do"

Yeah.