Soldiers of Misfortune

As you can tell by the absences of posts in the last 5 months I got a new boss. In the five years i've worked for the company I'm at I've had many bosses. Not many like this though. I feel I have put in more sweat and hours in to my job since he took over then I did in the last 5 years. I don't know if I care for the job anymore and feel myself being a lot more indifferent if I get fired or not. I am not in any position in life to lose this job as the wife and I have big plans for 2009, but I just don't know how long I can put up with this crap. I guess it's just head down and work thru it hoping that the satisfaction of giving my notice next summer is worth all the crap I put up with.

No Bunny

I've been listening to alot of internet radio lately (as my ipod always needs to be recharged) and it got me thinking. Is this the new revolution the music industry needs? When I was first getting into music, It was a hour and a half hour drive to a record store. I would buy albums from labels I knew that I liked other bands from or by the artwork on the cover. In my small town there was no radio stations outside of top 40. I was getting into industrial and electronica, the only way for me to discover these artist was through hit or miss album purchases or word of mouth. This started me off on buying a lot of 12 inch singles and later cd singles and then expanding to the full albums if I liked what I heard. I think the first step in the dying of the music industry was the when they stopped producing cd singles in the amount they did in the late 80's to early 90's. I know that the downloadable singles were the reason they stopped, but not everyone at the time had the internet. I currently have over 1300 industrial cd's and albums. A good collection that I have a massed in the last 20 years. I was until currently buying new artists and albums on the old mantra of label and artwork. This has changed. In the last 8 hours of listening to RantRadio I have heard maybe four songs that I have in my collection. I listen as I do my artwork and have a piece of scrap paper that I scribbled down new artists as I hear them. With this kind of exposure and instant gratification (downloads) how fast can someone just getting into music have a collection of digital music to make my wall of cd's look ancient? I still don't know how I feel about downloads. I love the crisp quality of the music but miss having the artwork and liner notes. I know that newer MP3 players are trying to remedy this for us old fuddy duddies by scrolling through album covers to chose the song, but nothing with be the same as holding it physically in my hands. Any ways, I believe the revolution has begun, or I just discovered it for myself.

Join in the Chant

To help me in my quest to become a better comic book artist I have enrolled in a correspondance course from the Joe Kubert school. I haven't been in school in years so I thought trying a class from the comfort of my art desk would be the way to go. I am so out of practice in my inking. I used to fly through a page and now I am struggling to finish the first one I've done in months. I guess I go used to inking my own work and would cheat on the pencils to make the inking easier. Inking someone else's work is kinda daunting. Choosing what looks best for my eyes and hoping it's what the penciler was thinking when they made that line. I is definely helping me stay on a schedule and getting me closer to my goals that I posted earlier this year. Let's hope I can stick with it and see what comes from it.

Whirlpool

I am currently working on my new year list by updating my deviantart website with some posters I did for an independent record store in Arizona named Hoodlums. As posted there, Hoodlums was flooded out last summer and over the winter the Memorial Union that it is located in had a fire. They are currently shut done and may not open until later this spring. If you get a chance check them out at www.hooodlumsmusic.com or my deviantart site www.chrispee.deviantart.com

zero-sum

My first real day off in months and I spend it at home sick. Why do I feel guilty about wanting time by my self where I'm not under the pressure to get chores done or make time for anyone else but me? My first real day off since the beginning of November and I feel like crap, not only do I have a chest cold but wished I felt better so I could get some cleaning done.

In This Twilight

A lot has happened since my last post. No, I did quit my crappy job, but I've thought alot more about the future than I have before. I know it's that time of year to reflect and make promises of change but I've decided rather than making resoloutions that I will probably break before I write them I thought I would make a checklist of things I would like/need/want to do in 2008. Here they are for the world to keep score.

As a person
-see the doctor
something I have been putting off for years and as I;m getting older I can oly imagine what my 20's did to my body
-make a real friend
I don't have anyone that I can call a true friend(besides my wife), I have a bunch of people that I work with, and a bunch of people I play and talk to online but no one to really hang out .
-find a new job/career
I rant and rave about how much I dislike my current job but have been with it over three years without change
-save more money
My wife and I would like to buy a house in the next couple of years...
-make more time for myself
Last year I gave up a lot of personal time to help out others and it only took away from my mental health and my marriage.

As a husband
-make more time for my wife.
We still haven't taken a honeymoon and I really haven't made the time I should for my wife.
-plan something romantic

As an artist
-do a poster size art piece a month
-20 comic pages
-get a second comic printed

As a technophile
-update my blogs and websites more often

As a human
-reduce my impact on the earth
this my wife and I have already started a few years now and would like to find more ways to decrease my/our footprint
-donate more
there are so many organizations that need help, I just have to find more that fit my beliefs

What a World

What did we do before technology. I can't remember what life was like before we had instant access to the world. And everyday it becomes even more personal. We can now connect to the world from our pockets. Are the days of Star Trek that far off? We were watching Children of Men last night and I remember how it was considered in one review as the modern day Blade Runner. When I watched Blade Runner as a kid that future seemed so far off it was insane. Flying cars? But watching Children of Men, I could really place myself in that future and it didn't seem that far off from where life is today. I can see car with windshield notifications. I can almost see myself in the future that was set up in Minority Report. Can the year 2100 seem so different to us know than what 2000 looked like in the early 1900s. Technology seems to be increasing at a phoenominal rate and yet the future doesn't seem that strange. Or should it? Wil the terminator future happen and send us back to the dark ages?