Greater Satellites

Note: I was working on this post for a while. It was completed today (Wed Nov 15) and back-dated to Saturday, the day I began writing it.

This past week was a difficult time for everyone in the house. Charlie, my mom’s beau, passed away at the age of 59. It came so fast… none of us really expected it. He was taken to the hospital on Sunday and by Wednesday he died. He was in advanced stages of lung and liver cancer for about a month, or so the doctors concluded. In addition to a dizzying array of emotions about it, I mainly feel angry and sad. My mom stayed with him for those three days, and in that time it was made clear that he knew for at least a year what was going on and refused treatment. Just as an aside, his father and brother also died of cancer because they refused to go to the doctor as well. It makes me mad because it was stubborn and selfish of him to do that, to not get a diagnosis and seek some sort of help. With medicine the way it is, chances are he could’ve gotten better… Maybe a full recovery, but instead he neglected it and just seemed to “accept his fate”. I feel sad because of mom, mainly, as any son or daughter should. Although Cholly (as he liked to be called) and I didn’t really talk much, we had our moments and a couple of inside jokes. He was a good person, an honest person, a simple person, and he made mom happy, which made Denise and I happy. Mom doesn’t deserve all of the pain and suffering she’s been through, and not just in this instance but throughout her life. She’s most definitely one of the strongest and most beautiful people I’ve ever met and I wouldn’t trade my life and experiences with her for anything in the world. I just wish for once that she could catch a fucking break…

I noticed, though, that around this time last year Cholly began acting different. Before, he always came and went as he pleased… that was just the type of person he was, always on the move. But then he started spending more time with mom, visiting her at work, hanging around the house, meeting her here for dinner (which he often cooked), and going on weekend camping and shore trips with her. Most of me would like to believe that although he realized and chose his path at that point, the way he wanted to carry out the rest of his days, he didn’t let that get in the way of making the one person he really cared about truly happy for the rest of his time here on Earth. I find a great deal of comfort in that thought… that instead of going from doctor to doctor and hospital to hospital and perhaps prolonging an inevitable fate, that he threw caution and himself into the wind and decided to live the best he could with the lady he loved. He was a fighter, I knew that much from the moment I met him. Although I wish he were still here for mom, I know that he’s definitely looking down on her, that he’s in a better place, and he’s not in pain anymore. I’ll be strong for mom and watch out for her in place of the one who can’t be here anymore. It was a pleasure knowing you, Cholly. “Whadda ya hear? Whadda ya say? Cagney, 1938.”

When it finally hits, it hits like a ton bricks.

This commercial sucks and it seems to be on every single commercial break for the shows that I watch. It’s sad because I really dig that song and it fits very poorly with the on screen action, unless of course Microsoft’s brilliant marketing team is going for that audio-visual irony thing… Which I doubt.

Tomorrow we as Americans vote. I’ve never voted before, although I am registered. I’m considering going tomorrow for the whole 5 minutes it will probably take and just pulling the Democrat lever or button or rotary crank or whatever it is you tug/push/operate. I’m so disillusioned with politics that I want as little to do with it as possible. I know the decisions that they make will ultimately affect me, but unless I were to get seriously involved I probably wouldn’t be able to change much. I’m sure that’s the mentality of a lot of young Americans: “I’m just one of millions, how will my voice be heard?”. Winston Churchill (a pretty smart guy, in case you didn’t know) said something that made me laugh: “Democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”

I really dislike the enlongated processes for passing new laws, the slander campaigns that run non-stop on television right around this time, the “Vote For ______” signs that literally pollute major roads (I’m looking squarely at you, Boulevard), the bickering between the two sides, the fact that there are only two sides, candidates who tell lies, candidates who tell half-truths, and it downright infuriates me that those fucking clowns in Washington make $165,000 a year (after, of course, voting to raise their own salaries, something a surprising number of them finally agreed on) and only worked 93 days so far this year. You have to be kidding me.

I did a little research earlier today and found that not one candidate is standing for everything I believe in… Which doesn’t surprise me, for the record, I just wanted to establish that fact. I find it difficult to objectively choose a potential candidate based on political platform alone. Further, it’s difficult for me to choose someone just based on their individual stances. I need to know the person, not the politics, but you’d be hard pressed to find these wankers anywhere accessible the other 11 months of the year. I will vote for a candidate who I don’t necessarily see eye-to-eye with if I believe he or she is genuine, but I’m not willing to go above and beyond just to sit at an affair, albeit formal or informal, with said politician to really get to know them. Some of the ads, however, do give us a bit of insight from time to time. In the course of all these smearing campaigns, I’ll discover that Politician X was at a strip club with so and so and he was drinking *GASP* ALCOHOL. I believe those ads are attempting to make me think: “This man has loose morals and therefore is no kind of leader! He is stricken from my voting palette!” BUT, here’s what the ad actually accomplishes in my mind: “However he decides to spend his leisure time is totally up to him. If sipping on a Long Island Iced Tea and seeing a nice pair of titties bouncing in his face relieves the stress of a hard days work for him (it does, by the way), then right on. Hey, I could really go for a lap dance right about now…” The more “normal” a candidate seems, the more likely they are to get my vote (in my mind, and perhaps in actuality tomorrow).

This is the longest I’ve spent waxing semi-intellectual about politics… probably in my whole life. It’s making my brain hurt and filling me with rage so I will stop now. I hope, at the very least, some light has been shed on how my mind operates when it comes to politics (hint: the answer is either not at all or with incredible fury). Good talk, good talk.

Did I mention this commercial sucks?

If you don’t know how to use 1) a Mac and 2) Photoshop by the time you’re in your second quarter, YOU SHOULD PROBABLY KILL YOURSELF AND THEN DROP OUT (not necessarily in that order)

Jesus, these people keep asking the most ridiculous questions:

1) How do you turn snapping on?
2) How do you undo?
3) How do I make an equal aspect shape?
4) Can you help me?

“Computer Science” is a first quarter class. You don’t learn advanced programming. You just learn how to use Windows and how to use Mac. SIMPLE.

Intro To Photoshop is a first quarter class. Self explanatory.

Stupid people often waste my time / money / patience.

“GARGAHRGRAR”

“I have a post in the depths of my gut, and I intend to throw it up all over the keyboard to get it on the internet.”

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve last posted and I promised myself to keep this thing constantly updated, so here goes a summary of the past couple of days.

SEPTA is back now, and I’m once again a rider. They are lucky the strike didn’t last any longer than a week, because I was beginning to fall into the “biking to school” routine. I must admit, having public transportation does make it easier to get my projects to and from school. Carrying an 18×25 sketchpad while riding a bike it a bit dangerous… not to mention incredibly cumbersome.

School has been going well lately. I actually slept right through my alarm this past Thursday and missed both of my classes, so that’s not very good at all. But, I’m confident in my grades for those classes and am slightly ahead in terms of the workload, so I’m not worried about the adverse effects to my grade. I really love my school, but I’m thinking next quarter I’m going to steer away from the 8AM classes if I can. Night owls by nature cannot by put to sleep even with the most powerful sedatives. Go ahead and shoot an Alaskan Night Owl with a tranquilizer gun, he won’t even budge. Just ask Casper the friendly Snow Owl, because he is well versed in being captured and endangered. Isn’t that right, Casper? “HOO!”

I’ve been working on what I hope is the best version of Dark Driving Designs (not productions) to date. It will function as my personal portfolio site and as a showcase of the biographical information found on the previous Dark Driving-s. As a special treat, I am posting the new logo (pictured stage left), the splash page, and front page layout all for your enjoyment and analysis. Leave comments if you’d like, letting me know what you think of my little endeavour.

Everything else has been good, and by everything, I mean most things. Hire me.

“All I see are knives screaming out of your mouth…”

Well, SEPTA has gone on strike (as expected) and a few funny events have happened in the wake of said strike. In no particular order:

1) When driving around on 95 this morning (southbound towards Center City), myself and my fellow drivers all took notice of the increased traffic volume at 9:45AM. Everyone was already in work, so these people were just the normal citizens who would’ve been riding SEPTA to get to their target destinations. Although no words were spoken, a unanimous rage towards SEPTA was prevalent in the morning air.

2) While driving by the Transportation Center on the way home, I noticed to strikers with their cute picket signs. I calmly rolled down my window and yelled “YOU’RE ARE ALL GAY, NO SANE UNION WOULD EVER EXPECT FULL MEDICAL. GO FUCK YOURSELVES YOU SELFISH BASTARDS!”. There was much yelling at me and a few tried to catch up to me on foot, but to no avail. See, if you were driving your bus, you could’ve simply ran me off the road. Assholes.

That’s actually it, but you have to admit those are pretty funny things. I honestly loathe SEPTA, more now than I ever have before. They’re asking for full health coverage. No co-pay at all… for anything! This includes hospital stays, doctor visits, oral surgery, etc. It’s fucking absurd. There’s my personal dichotomy: I want to ride the el so I can go to school, but I don’t want the city to give in to SEPTA’s demands. Not even the highest ranking city officials get that kind of coverage. If SEPTA wins this, it will set a whole new precedent for other corporations to follow and we can pretty much expect city-wide strikes from all types of unions until they all have full coverage. Jesus, I wish we could give their jobs away to people who could use the extra money (ie: anyone).

“Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash.”