Sunday, February 26, 2006
JACKAL
This is an mpg movie file of a pellet gun shaped to look like gun from an anime/manga series.
:-b..........
|
This is an mpg movie file of a pellet gun shaped to look like gun from an anime/manga series.
:-b..........
|
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
An Open Letter to the Person Who Broke Into My Car on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
"An Open Letter to the Person Who Broke Into My Car"
"Hey pal.
First off, thanks for being decent and not smashing the window. It's the quick, easy, brutish way, and I know you went the extra mile by jimmying my lock. It's the little niceties that really make one feel special.
I don't hold it against you that you took my iPod. I'm sure you can buy lots of crack or meth or Thunderbird with it. It's a sweet little toy too, so I hope you took some time to play with it before you pawned it. Also, smart move taking the charger. That'll make it a street corner deal to die for.
Not sure what you want with the visor holder full of scratched-up cd-r's. Maybe you just wanted to hear that Grateful Dead Hampton, VA show with the skip in Tennessee Jed. Maybe it's trippier with a lot of wine or something, I dunno.
You took my Leatherman tool too, so obviously you know the hard life of the street; bottles to open, philips screws to loosen, locks to wrench, and the two inch blade might just save your life. Whatever.
A few questions haunt me though, such as, why did you take my ashtray? Surely you have one better suited to sit on a crate and catch stray crack rocks. And my sunglasses holder. I mean it was free for me, but hey, I guess it was a shopping spree for you. Hope it holds your tea shades well. Was my radio really that crappy? I know it's nothing great, but leaving it behind after stealing my ashtray, lighter plug and sunglasses holder makes me feel kind of second rate.
So in summation, I hope you have a happy holiday, and thank you for shopping the parking lots at USC. Where your crime is still important to us.
Sincerely,
Ben. "
The internet. Full of wonder and magic.
|
"An Open Letter to the Person Who Broke Into My Car"
"Hey pal.
First off, thanks for being decent and not smashing the window. It's the quick, easy, brutish way, and I know you went the extra mile by jimmying my lock. It's the little niceties that really make one feel special.
I don't hold it against you that you took my iPod. I'm sure you can buy lots of crack or meth or Thunderbird with it. It's a sweet little toy too, so I hope you took some time to play with it before you pawned it. Also, smart move taking the charger. That'll make it a street corner deal to die for.
Not sure what you want with the visor holder full of scratched-up cd-r's. Maybe you just wanted to hear that Grateful Dead Hampton, VA show with the skip in Tennessee Jed. Maybe it's trippier with a lot of wine or something, I dunno.
You took my Leatherman tool too, so obviously you know the hard life of the street; bottles to open, philips screws to loosen, locks to wrench, and the two inch blade might just save your life. Whatever.
A few questions haunt me though, such as, why did you take my ashtray? Surely you have one better suited to sit on a crate and catch stray crack rocks. And my sunglasses holder. I mean it was free for me, but hey, I guess it was a shopping spree for you. Hope it holds your tea shades well. Was my radio really that crappy? I know it's nothing great, but leaving it behind after stealing my ashtray, lighter plug and sunglasses holder makes me feel kind of second rate.
So in summation, I hope you have a happy holiday, and thank you for shopping the parking lots at USC. Where your crime is still important to us.
Sincerely,
Ben. "
The internet. Full of wonder and magic.
|
Monday, February 20, 2006
One year ago today, I was sitting in the Mechanical Engineering lab of the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. I was bored that day and was in the UNIX lab editing the website I created using the free webspace that the school provided. I had no real reason to be in the lab because the class that used that specific lab finished the semester before, so I sat there surrounded by people who had real work to do and edited bitty lines of HTML. It was getting late so I rode my bike back to my dormroom.
I turned on my laptop and immediately opened my browser. There on my Yahoo homepage, was a news link saying that Hunter S. Thompson had died.
The details from those first articles were vague. I know this because I read them all and I mean literally read them all. I checked every news source. I checked every search engine. I checked message boards. No one printed in detail what had happened. No one knew for sure. All that was official was that the Doctor had died of a gunshot wound. No information where he was shot or how he was shot. And during all this time, in the back of my head, I hoped that this was a hunting accident gone awry.
(Happiness is a Warm Gun by The Beatles begins to play through my speakers at the moment)
I didn't sleep that night. I might have stayed up to do homework or I might have been up reading. I do not remember. All I can remember is waiting for the morning to arrive so I could be the first to get the newspaper. At about 4 in the morning, I went to the front desk and waited for the newspapers to arrive. When they did, I took a copy of the Chicago Tribune and USA Today back to my room to examine them both. The Tribune had the Thompson story at the bottom of the front page and extending to the 6th page. USA Today had a tiny Thompson blurb at the top of the front page and had the full article in section 3A.
(Mr. Tamborine Man by Bob Dylan begins to play through my speakers)
This was obviously big news and I was undescribably saddened. The days seemed gray and cloudy and slowly it occured to me that nothing had changed. My heart was screaming in anger but everywhere I looked, there were no signs that anyone else noticed. I felt alone. I was alone.
I began to clip everything relating to Hunter S. Thompson from the newspapers. I was insane. I clipped the USA Today article and blurb and the Chicago Tribune article. The following days, I clipped editorial pieces about Thompson from the Tribune even though some of them I disagreed with. In mid-March, Doonesbury had a weeklong tribute to the Doctor and I clipped those also. I even clipped local things. A few small 'zines and newspapers had their own stories and I took those. When Rolling Stone Magazine published the special Thompson issue, I bought it the second I could find it. I still remember waiting for that magazine. The previous issue had a picture of Bob Marley and that picture still annoys me to this day.
And while I was in my insanity, nothing made me sadder than the lack of acknowledgement from everyone else. There was NOTHING. I had to do something and so I printed out a small 3 by 6 inch Gonzo Fist and wore it by placing it in my rolled up right sleeve. I wore that for about a month, hoping that somewhere, someone would recognize the symbol and mention something to me. A few words were all I wanted to know that someone else cared. But nothing came from my sleeve Fist so I printed another Gonzo Fist and taped it to the left sleeve of my jacket.
One day while running to catch a bus, someone said to me, "Hey, Gonzo died." The bus I wanted to catch was already there, but I stopped and turned to him. "Yes, Hunter S. Thompson died," I said correcting him. "Oh yeah," He said. Then turning to his friends he said, "I read about it..." He didn't really know and he didn't really care. I missed my bus and sat at a bench outside in the dark. My mind was in complete silence because I was afraid to think. I would have only made things worse by thinking about what had just happened.
It is now February 20th once again and I do not know if things are ok again. I don't think they will ever be ok. I am no longer in Mechanical Engineering and moved back to the city to begin a Journalism degree. Still, I do not know anyone who is as big a fan of the doctor as I am. I have seen some writings online but these are still impersonal pixels positioned to resemble words. So today, I manipulate these pixels and chuck them into the mixing pot known as the internet. Read them if you like. Ignore them if you want. I just needed to finally write what happened.
(The Ballad of Hunter S. Thompson by Bob Wyman begins to play on my iTunes list)
"And he's gone
to Hawaii.
He's gone
with the Angels of 'Frisco
He's gone
to Las Vegas.
He's gone, He's gone.
Gonzo."
"At the top of the mountain, we are all snow leopards."
~Hunter S. Thompson
|
I turned on my laptop and immediately opened my browser. There on my Yahoo homepage, was a news link saying that Hunter S. Thompson had died.
The details from those first articles were vague. I know this because I read them all and I mean literally read them all. I checked every news source. I checked every search engine. I checked message boards. No one printed in detail what had happened. No one knew for sure. All that was official was that the Doctor had died of a gunshot wound. No information where he was shot or how he was shot. And during all this time, in the back of my head, I hoped that this was a hunting accident gone awry.
(Happiness is a Warm Gun by The Beatles begins to play through my speakers at the moment)
I didn't sleep that night. I might have stayed up to do homework or I might have been up reading. I do not remember. All I can remember is waiting for the morning to arrive so I could be the first to get the newspaper. At about 4 in the morning, I went to the front desk and waited for the newspapers to arrive. When they did, I took a copy of the Chicago Tribune and USA Today back to my room to examine them both. The Tribune had the Thompson story at the bottom of the front page and extending to the 6th page. USA Today had a tiny Thompson blurb at the top of the front page and had the full article in section 3A.
(Mr. Tamborine Man by Bob Dylan begins to play through my speakers)
This was obviously big news and I was undescribably saddened. The days seemed gray and cloudy and slowly it occured to me that nothing had changed. My heart was screaming in anger but everywhere I looked, there were no signs that anyone else noticed. I felt alone. I was alone.
I began to clip everything relating to Hunter S. Thompson from the newspapers. I was insane. I clipped the USA Today article and blurb and the Chicago Tribune article. The following days, I clipped editorial pieces about Thompson from the Tribune even though some of them I disagreed with. In mid-March, Doonesbury had a weeklong tribute to the Doctor and I clipped those also. I even clipped local things. A few small 'zines and newspapers had their own stories and I took those. When Rolling Stone Magazine published the special Thompson issue, I bought it the second I could find it. I still remember waiting for that magazine. The previous issue had a picture of Bob Marley and that picture still annoys me to this day.
And while I was in my insanity, nothing made me sadder than the lack of acknowledgement from everyone else. There was NOTHING. I had to do something and so I printed out a small 3 by 6 inch Gonzo Fist and wore it by placing it in my rolled up right sleeve. I wore that for about a month, hoping that somewhere, someone would recognize the symbol and mention something to me. A few words were all I wanted to know that someone else cared. But nothing came from my sleeve Fist so I printed another Gonzo Fist and taped it to the left sleeve of my jacket.
One day while running to catch a bus, someone said to me, "Hey, Gonzo died." The bus I wanted to catch was already there, but I stopped and turned to him. "Yes, Hunter S. Thompson died," I said correcting him. "Oh yeah," He said. Then turning to his friends he said, "I read about it..." He didn't really know and he didn't really care. I missed my bus and sat at a bench outside in the dark. My mind was in complete silence because I was afraid to think. I would have only made things worse by thinking about what had just happened.
It is now February 20th once again and I do not know if things are ok again. I don't think they will ever be ok. I am no longer in Mechanical Engineering and moved back to the city to begin a Journalism degree. Still, I do not know anyone who is as big a fan of the doctor as I am. I have seen some writings online but these are still impersonal pixels positioned to resemble words. So today, I manipulate these pixels and chuck them into the mixing pot known as the internet. Read them if you like. Ignore them if you want. I just needed to finally write what happened.
(The Ballad of Hunter S. Thompson by Bob Wyman begins to play on my iTunes list)
"And he's gone
to Hawaii.
He's gone
with the Angels of 'Frisco
He's gone
to Las Vegas.
He's gone, He's gone.
Gonzo."
"At the top of the mountain, we are all snow leopards."
~Hunter S. Thompson
|
Saturday, February 18, 2006
(sigh)
I remember the days when I would be interested in about 20 random subjects at once and attack them all with such energy to the point of accomplishment and boredom.
What happened to me?
|
I remember the days when I would be interested in about 20 random subjects at once and attack them all with such energy to the point of accomplishment and boredom.
What happened to me?
|
Saturday, February 11, 2006
