Greater Satellites

Let me give you the back story of how this particular blog came into fruition, as I found it to be a pretty humorous scenario…

Last night I fell asleep at my usual time, which is any time after midnight but before 3am (as I need at least 6 hours of sleep to even consider functioning at work). Last night I believe sleep happened in the vicinity of 12:20-ish. I turned off all my lights, put the iMac display to sleep, and crawled into my toasty bed. All was well until about 1:30am when, seemingly out of nowhere, AC/DC (the first artist in my iTunes library) starts blasting on through my computer speakers. Needless to say, it was a pretty jarring experience. I vaulted (yes, vaulted) out of bed to turn the volume down and then looked around for ghosts. When ghosts started to seem like a silly idea (remember, slept for only about an hour at this point) I looked for more plausible reasons for this unwarranted disruption of my slumber. When I ruled out my mom, my sister, and my cats the situation began to look bleak. Then, it hit me: I did it. I peeked on the bed where I was, just moments prior, hibernating like a large bear-y creature to find the shiny white quadrilateral that I like to call my Apple Remote.

“Aha!” I exclaimed as I began to draw sane conclusions. I must’ve rolled around on the remote, which I keep in my bed to snooze my alarm in the mornings, and activated iTunes. Just as I was settling my brain down to sleep again, I heard something else; equally loud but infinitely more annoying. It was the sound of a car going down my driveway, blasting (Spanish) music with a bass (presumably) in the trunk so loud, it was rattling the body of the almost assuredly shitty vehicle. This is where the title of the post comes from:

Nobody Likes Your Music. Period.

Unless it’s summer time and you’re riding down to the beach or to a hot spot with the windows and/or top down on your car, I really don’t want to hear what you’re listening to… Nor should I have to. There’s absolutely no reason to listen to music so loud in your sealed vehicle that I can hear it 30 feet away and through the brick, wood, and cement of my house (not to mention just the open sky, which does a pretty damn good job of dispersing sound). If the goal of your music playing is to get other people to hear and groove to what you’re grooving to, then congratulations: You’re an asshole! Might as well have outdoor speakers mounted on the top of your car to make the statement even clearer.

I’m not just narrowing this down to a language or genre of music, either, although it seems that only certain genres of people who listen to specific genres of music are this blatantly inconsiderate of those around them. But, let’s say for instance I was walking down South Street one Friday night just taking in the sights and sounds. If a car came blowing down the street crawling along the crowded street blasting, say, Protest The Hero, I wouldn’t have such a problem with it and for one reason: Context. I expect to hear people riding down South Street blasting all kinds of music because it’s a cultural melting pot down there. The same would be true if it was a low rider Caddy rollin on dubs blasting Snoop Dogg. If I saw that shit, it would probably bring a smile to my face. I wouldn’t go down to South Street or Broad Street or any of the bars near Old City and expect not to hear some music being playing at unreasonably high volumes. Context is the key.

The point of this roundabout storant (story + rant = storant) is that we should try to be considerate of our neighbors, but if it ever gets to the point where your neighbor is so ignorant nothing will help, you could always try the “taste-of-your-own-medicine” method by blasting the latest Protest the Hero album directly at their (fill in the blank with the follow:)

• adjoining wall
• automobile
• house
• children’s ear drums

Thanks for reading, and stay classy.

So it’s come to my attention that a lot of people don’t know that I have a job now. I guess I didn’t necessarily announce it because I didn’t want to jinx myself, but I think it’s safe to say that after a few days of work I’m really digging the new place. Also, because of the job, you can’t yell at me for not being online at 4am anymore. Those are the rules. I traded in my insanely liberal ways in lieu of some structure in my life.

Background Info: The company is Intuit Solutions, one of the premiere hosting companies/Pro Stores resellers in Philly. In case you’re unfamiliar, Pro Stores is just an easy solution to simultaneously sell your merch on a business website and Ebay. I’m in the design/development department and picking up more responsibility by the hour. I like the job because it’s a relatively easy-going atmosphere with good people and good tunes. I’ve done a bit of design work thus far, interacted with some clients, and tomorrow I’ll be setting up my first store online (exciting, but in that nerdy way). Things are going great and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that this job will be a keeper (at least for a while).

Other than that there’s not much to say. Been hanging out with Jackie a lot, watching movies, getting into some new music, and being in a jolly, Christmas-y mood. I really can’t wait until the big day gets here, I’m psyched. I have some good gift ideas, and with a bit of luck I’ll have ample funds to get people everything they need.

On a related note, this is post #300!. I’ve decided to do something really cool for the next post. I’m thinking something along the lines of “I’m GREAT! The Best Of Gorm: Over 300 Posts And Counting, A Biopic.” as a title. We’ll see, it’s still in the development phases. That’s all for now.

Well, I’m having a bit of trouble sleeping, so I decided to blog about the weekend while it’s still fresh in my mind. I’m hoping that I just get so little sleep that I actualize a different persona. I think I’d call that person Tyler. Totally random, I know.

Friday began like most other days, with the sun rising in the east. I was up at the (relatively) early hour of 11am, beginning some design and data input work for my current (kinda) employer. Simulatenously, I began creating some new site mock-ups that I intend to use in future portfolio screenings for prospective employers. Jon and I discussed it yesterday a bit: It’s imperative to stand out among the crowd of sometimes thirty or more potential job candidates. Other than making a fantastic impression as far personality and work ethic goes, it’s as equally important to have a solid, diverse, and ultimately unique body of work on your side. Anyone could fiddle around with Frontpage (eck!) or Dreamweaver (bleh!) and have a halfway decent site up and running withing a few hours. A good designer should not only break you out of the slippery slope of template-ism, but also afford you a presence on these vast interwebs among your peers and competitors…

But I digress.

Point being that I sent out quite a few more applications on Friday with some updated template work. I’m excited to hear back from, well, any of them. As the day wound down, I started cleaning my room a bit and doing some laundry. How very home ec of me. When all of the very mundane chores I set out to do were finished, I decided to pop on a movie. In this case, it was the very awful Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers on the new epitome-of-awesome FEARnet channel. I remember watching that movie when I was much younger and getting a kick out of the gratuitous amounts of nudity and violence (but mostly the nudity… c’mon, I was 12!). It was such a terrible plot, but I appreciate and watch most horror movies, regardless of quality. Eventually Jackie showed up and she, Denise, and I hung out, had some drinks, and half-watched Darkness Falls. We had a good time hanging out and shooting the shit. It was an exceptional, indoors-y type night.

Saturday I sat around twiddling my thumbs for a majority of the day. I worked out a bit, sent out some more applications/proposals to local companies/businesses, and got some reading done. Kathy and Rich ended up stopping by around 7:30pm to hang out and relax. I like that my room is accepted as a decent place to chill, makes me feel good about the coziness factor of my house. Anyway, Jackie came by around 10pm and introductions were made all around. We got sucked into watching a pretty good portion of The Island, which is pretty decent sci-fi movie in this author’s humble opinion. Kathy and Rich bounced away around midnight, which is precisely when the J and I rolled our hungry selves over to Wawa for some sustenance. Upon return, we commenced the watching of Office Space, which my lady had never seen before. I know, I know, it’s crazy, but she iiked it right out of the gate. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to watch it all because she was feeling tired and it was getting late. Great times, all around though.

Today (technically yesterday) I woke up way late in the afternoon and did some reading. “What were you reading, dawg?” you may inquire, to which I respond “Only one of the best comic series I’ve read in a long fucking time, my friend, and that comic series is Marvel’s Civil War.” It’s a cross-over comic, so you get to see all of Marvel’s big names (read: Spider Man, X-Men, Captain America, Iron Man (douche), Fantastic 4, Avengers, etc) all at once. The artwork is really well done and it’s pretty fuckin epic. It’s definitely worth a look for fans of the Marvel Universe. Just as an aside, here’s another comic that I am totally psyched about.

Sunday is my new bowling day. From 6pm to 9pm I’m a possible and probable Brunswick-sanctioned substitute for a Friends & Family league up at the Brunswick Zone on Street Road. Today was my first day subbing on my dad’s team. I sucked pretty bad on my first game, only scoring a paltry 109, but my second game was a nice recovery with a 156, and the third and final game rang in to tune of 148, I believe, leaving me with the respectable average of 138. I had a lot of fun with my family, extended family, and the lady. I’ll be up there every Sunday until May or something (it’s a long God damn season). Got back ’round 10:30, ate a little, drank a little iced tea, read some news, caught a couple more of my comics, and that pretty much brings us to current.

I watch a lot of movies, I know.

..because I haven’t been updating as frequently as I would like to. I finally caught some time and had the idea to write a bit, so here goes…

School is going well, although I remember distinctly why I hated finals week. They throw all kinds of work at you at once. Luckily this is stuff that I worked on throughout the quarter, but it’s still a little overwhelming knowing that it all has to be in within a span of three days (for me, at least). I missed a few days of school throughout the quarter, and I know that’s going to have a pretty big effect on my overall grades. I need to really just break myself apart and start rebuilding from a better foundation. I lack drive in most cases, and it’s become quite evident to me in these past few weeks. I hate myself for being that way and am going to find a means to change it.

In other news, I may be getting a job for the Philadelphia Inquirer as an editor. That’s right. I had an interview this past Monday and I was told that I was “totally qualified” and to “expect a call soon”. That would be quite an exciting environment to be a part of and they told me they could work around my schedule. Rock! Imagine how cool it would be to work there as an editor, move up to journalist, and then just write awesome stories for a living. Yowza.

I’m certainly in the Xmas spirit, as I’ve been listening to the music, decorating the house, and breaking out in spotaneous carols on the el. All good things. I’ll be updating omre throughout the weekend as I finished the following: 1) Color Theory Project, 2) Design Project, 3) History Of Motion Media Presentation, and 4) Study for Art History Final.

“On on they send, on without end, their joyful tone to every home…”

I never get enough sleep on Monday night for the early mornings of Tuesday. I think next quarter when I register, I will try to ween off of those early morning classes. 12:30-4:30 is just dandy by me. In related news, I think I’ve really learned a lot thus far and I’ve only taken three classes. Congratulations are in order to my design teacher, my color theory teacher, and my drawing teacher. You’ve made my creativity skyrocket. The improvement is evident in all of the recent work I’ve done not only for school but also for personal endeavours, which leads me to…

Dark Driving Designs, my new portfolio / personal web page is almost completely finished. The layout is complete, the color scheme is great, it’s not compliant but I don’t care about that anymore (many stunning effects require bending the rules), and it looks good in every browser I’ve tested it in. That listed includes but is not limited to: Internet Explorer 6, Safari, Firefox, Mozilla, Opera, Omniweb, Camino, iCab, Flock, and newer versions of Netscape. So take that, internet.

It will be unveiled sometime this week along with the new Divine Dissonance website, so kep checking back for the green light on both of those projects.

“We’ll destroy this world for you, I know you want me to…”

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.”