Stand and Point

Yous a ghoul.

2011-01-12T09:43:00.000-08:00

I begin today by saying that we need to discover a means of perpetual fuel--explanation soon.

I'm not so certain on the hows or whats of this brilliant revelation, I just know that it needs to happen. It would obviously need to be something that is constantly renewing itself, is ecologically sound and potent enough to power large mobile objects. Perhaps we can use something like the sun (that is right, folks. You heard it hear first.. I will call it "Solar Power") or Dark (negative) matter. The use of dark matter would be difficult to harness, but it would settle the qualms and concerns of many scientists due to the resulting effect: the slowing expansion of the universe. We would be saviors to the universe--preventing whole galaxies from eventually colliding in 7,898 million light years..........or god. That dude's omnipotent, right? SOLVED! We will use gods power AND we get a new catchy slogan to our constantly renewing fuel source. We will say "Powered by God," and all those protesting religious zealots can go play hide and go f*ck themselves for trying to greedily keep this obviously true and certain power source to themselves. :p

This really needs to happen for many reasons. I wont bother you with the tree-hugger in me and just stick with the selfish part that wants a cruise-liner sized airship that sails across the sky and never has to land. I will love my flying fortress as it slowly paces itself in the earths atmosphere. It will tower to a peak at the center, resembling the mayan ruins, with several different houses and rooms built, surrounding. On the west end of my hovering homeland, there will be a hangar that houses my car-planes. Like the Jetsons, these will be little glass-domed vehicles that jet through the skies to other, lesser sized, mobile homes (coined that phrasee, too).

With God-fuel or Gouel (pronounced Ghoul) there will be no reason to venture to the surface anymore. I will have everything agriculturally and otherwise needed, to sustain my airborne lifestyle. I will not even have to worry about the meek things such as weather or climate shift. With the new fuel and no need to spend money researching pointless economical efficiency, we can focus our time and money creating a sonic transmission unit (STU) to force all the unwanted rain and coldness away. There's absolutely no flaw in this idea, nor will it take any toll our the worlds life-force.

There is a requirement if you wish to live in your own ship, however. You must bring with you, one endangered specie. It can be anything as long as you can keep it alive for more than 8 years--breeding it with like species if you can. This is simply so that you have a go-to encase you find yourself food-less or just need that extra warm pair of slippers during the winter time; and if you don't need any of that, then well look--you helped.

I don't think I am crazy for wanting this. I also don't think its an impossibility. If you want to doubt my irrefutable logic, well then I say you this: C'mon!

This was a stupid thought for the day...There actually might be another one. Until then, just go Gouel up :p

With the greatest of ease....

2011-01-07T12:24:00.000-08:00

Alright friends, the time has come. Grab your wears, your tears, your food and your hair, it's time for us to start a traveling circus. That's right, you read correctly (hearing need not apply to this statement). I feel we all need a nice and steady change of pace; what better way than to form a brigade of contortionists and flame-eaters?

We will do this the old fashioned way too. Instead of motor vehicles and buses, we will load up large, horse and oxen powered caravans, adorned in bright colors, shiny objects and clanking things. Maybe I'm thinking of a movie version of gypsies...either way. The main carriage of supplies will be a large red wagon with gold trimming and hand-etched wooden planks where the door and foot stools are. It will obviously house our largest tent and compact stadium seating, vanity mirorrs (for the bearded woman) and some of our finest vertically challenged patrons...

A proceeding train of exotic animals will follow. We will have creatures big and small, ugly and cute (i.e. a swamp rat, 16 year old-earless domestic house cat, two monkey cardboard cut outs and a giraffe stuffed animal). The elephants will HAVE to be real, so everyone start saving all your money, rob a liquor store, steal lunch currency from underprivileged, nerdy children and your sons (or daughters) piggy bank. They won't mind. It's a small price to pay for a fun filled night of mediocrity and humiliation. Besides, we're hitting the road right? There's no way they can ever catch a constantly slow moving, but occasionally stopping to put on a show, caravan of thieving acrobats and sitar players, pulled by emaciated horse and oxen. (please don't name the animals. you will just be sad when they die).

For the next phase we will need a ring leader. This has to be someone who is confident, a showman, have a booming personality and (speaking of booming) be able to shoot down any of the "bad seeds" planted in our audience. Ah yes. There is no better way to get the full support of our cascading audience then to adopt the "shoot to kill" theory of entertainment.

We will put on our show sometime between noon and one. The reasoning for such a long and open schedule is to allow all our citizens of the traveling awesome, time to sleep off hangovers and allow for us to travel. When our guests ask how much the ticket costs just merely scoff and say, "You don't even know..."

All-in-all I think we have this. Are you ready? What role do you want to take in this misadventure of good times and ill humor? I'll bring the cups--that's my role.

A billion plus Infinity...

2011-01-06T08:48:00.000-08:00

Sooo. Parallel universes....yeahhh.

Rather, I would like to call them parallel existences; a parallel universe is exponentially more broad than I care to touch upon. (though that is essentially what this rant is about)

If they exist, there has to be AT LEAST an infinite number of them. Each one would be a different path or choice that you didn't make in the current existence you are living. From those parallel existences, there stems out another infinite number of parallel universes (that's a lot. good thing I have an infinite number of fingers to count) of the choices that the not-yous didn't make either...And these simultaneously spawned existences of choices you didn't make would apply to every thing that exists and has the potential to be altered by variable situations. That is a mind bending thought.

There is probably even a parallel existence (or million) that doesn't even include me as a factor. Perhaps back in the grand ol' day of my parents and their youth, they decided that pot was much more economically sustainable than two additional children and thus, so long Zack (or rather, never hello).

I suppose that the idea past theorizing intelligence gave about time travel and the concept that, altering the past slightly could dramatically influence the present, could be applied to our parallel being. This is such an awesome concept! By doing or not doing something I've influenced another me--a not-me of different existence and just like that a domino effect.

Screw time-travel. Lets find away for me to interact with my parallel selves. We can flail about with a giant net, like catching a swarm of butterflies, and gather up everyone I am and put us in our own universe where we all interact together......I probably wouldn't even like my other selves, but I suppose there would be enough of myself to keep me entertained.

Somewhere out there is a female Zack. Zoe? and who is the original Zack? Clearly my ego-centric mind feels that I am the original, but what if I'm existence number 294811987 of ? To that I say

"STOP MAKING ME DO AND NOT DO THINGS, ME!"

Potentially, the ability to jump parallel existences does happen on another plane, but would I even recognize myself? Would I look completely different than what I am now? What if I dated a parallel me or played with myself in the park when I was a kid (wait a minute...). In conclusion, me and myself will take over all universes and make you bow before us (me). End.

My digital life

2011-01-05T14:28:00.000-08:00

I think 90% of my day is spent online or technically 'er bound as if the computer were an extension of my physical self. There is the part of me that wonders how this happened and the bigger part of me that knows. Other than driving my car and sleeping, I would have to say that I'm almost consistently in front of a computer, television, iPad or some other portable means to divert my attention...I wonder what it's doing to my brain...

I do love me some internet though. Nothing is better than that f*cking "Stumble Upon" program or playing Pogo.com to entertain my ever dwindling attention toward work and personal art. I often think, "what would digital me would look like?"

Lets say that artificial intellegence did get to a superior point in our existence and it decided not to obliterate humanity in a technological apocalypse, and instead they decide to give mankind the gift of immortality by finding a way to download our conscious, sub-conscious and/or collective unconscious into a pool of data, streaming for eternity throughout the electro-magnectic airwaves, or something or other (my longest run-on sentence ever)...Neat thought, saw it on some NOVA show in class when I was 6.

Alright. This just happened. Our 83 y.o. minds are officially uploaded (Yep. We're old. Sorry dead old friends)...Do we see each other? Are we literally just swirling in this pool (I hope not. Dark water is too much as it is). Perhaps our sub-conscious selves now show their true identities--what would you look like? More importantly, if this were possible/did happen, would this affirm the existence of souls? Is that a whole other discussion? Sorry. Blew your mind for a second.

Personally, I think I would look amorphic, but resemble something of a human for that is all I knew from birth what to look like. No one ever told me, "You don't have to be human." --Maybe they did...I don't remember. Once more, I think I would be bright orange and swirly spiky. Looking at me will be like an acid trip. I would tell you to prepare for a journey of color and explosions. I WOULD tell you, but chances are that I don't have an actual voice.

Truthfully, I would love to be uploaded into some type of cyborg unit.

"Take me mechanical humanoid! Make me shiny with the ability to successfully perform the robot!"

And we would be able to customize our new bodies, adorning them with trinkets, tubes, weapons, not weapons--what have you. Lets face it, you can take the mind out of the body, but you can't take the mind out fashion forward thinking.

I would have some device that glowed a radioactive orange and green, pulsating in my chest like an exposed heart. My eyes would glow an icy red to suggest to other cyborg onlookers that I was extremely pissed off when really I just had an unscratch-able itch. A tattoo for a cyborg would be more like the graffiti we see on subway trains and tall buildings. OF COURSE I would have a graffitoo (thats right! I named it). It would be the wall image that the boy made a mural of on Sister Act 2. Ode to you, Whoopi! My voice would be deep, brooding and extremely charming (oh wait. have that now *slaps knee*).

So I got all this from sitting at my computer. Funny, I feel like a cyborg now. Being constantly at my computer screen, looking into an artificial representation of a real world makes me feel like I kind of already exist in the world I've created. Hm.... *busts out into the robot*

Stage 1: Originally stage XYZ

2011-01-04T14:46:00.001-08:00

So I've decided to initiate my Facebook profile again. I did this for several reasons, weighing the pros and cons of interaction with friends and family with the potential harm of internet drama, though I believe I've been able abolish most of it....a little drama isn't bad every now and again.

Truth be told, I've missed everyone. I'm not a social butterfly to begin (to compare, I'm probably more of a social ant or maybe dung beetle) and getting rid of my Facebook profile just caused that rift between everyone an myself to grow larger and larger. I still interacted with a lot of you pretty frequently throughout the last half of 2010, but greedy me needs more! So welcome back, haZA! I imagine there will be cake and pointy hats with cartoon animals involved?

With the new year upon me, I've also decided to begin this blog once more. I think...I tend to get wrapped into my head so much and it's very easy for me to get lost therein; a place to hold at least one of the thousands of speeding trains of thought racing around my mind would be nice. This is also a step to me becoming more focused with my art, one of my two new year resolutions.

I have a few new projects that I am very excited to continue at the start of this year. I'm helping to create a comic book for an eventual show to be pitched to HBO. The writer I'm working with has quite a gift and the musical composer (Greg, the one who got me into this all) is also a genius to his craft and one of my closest friends. I only hope that I can bring an equal contribution with my art. The challenge of creating a visual world based entirely out of written word is a a dream I've had for quite awhile as most of my friends know. While the descriptions are written, I get to be the man who brings these people--this world to a visual state. Now, my current struggle is getting myself to create all the images I want to. I began this project in October and got some characters done, some I want to redo and others that still need creating, but all-in-all I feel its coming along alright....a little slow, but that is okay since I got these right before the holidays...Time to get back in action (Damn you World of Warcraft and not my own ability to procrastinate. Never)

Another awesome project is working with my great friend Dan to create some amazing techno-industrial/ revolutionary (by all accounts, this is how I've interpreted it) t-shirts for his band, Lunch Line Jones, to get out. I helped them to create their logo about a year ago, which still holds up strongly and is truly awesome, in my personal opinion.

Dan ran into a man (haha with the rhyming) who has a t-shirt line and wants to help Dan get the name of his band out, which, how could he not want to help? LLJ (Lunch Line Jones) has a great sound to them and its constantly evolving into new and different things. If you have the opportunity check them out. Your ears will be pleasantly surprised.

Last year was long and this year is going to be just as long--actually it will be like .251556 milliseconds shorter or something like that. In the past I seem to struggle in the focus department when it came to my art. There are admittedly a lot of distractions out there especially for a 25 year old male. I decided to make more of a conscious effort to ignore those this year. I have a new computer, Corel Painter 11 (one of the two really expensive programs I needed), my hand, pencil, paper...etc. No more excuses.

The second resolution is a lot simpler, but a gillion times more complicated to pull off: get a new job. I've been at The Walton Company for just over two years now and it has become something like that really annoying razor burn I get after shaving my neck. I can cool it off temporarily redness is going last awhile. By all means, my Boss and his "wife," are very nice people and have an obvious goal in mind, just not one I find realistic anymore...In addition, to say they are nice is to say that a rabid dog can be pleasant during its brief lucid moments.

Don, 78, has a constant knack for picking on me, putting me down and belittling any means of work I do--being here for two years, I figured that I must be doing something he likes or else I would no longer be here. I pursued him for a raise (I believe back in october), a FIRST raise that I was supposed to get 9 months after I began working here and he told me, "I don't feel like you've earned a raise." Needless to say, I was offended, but remained professional. For the week following this event, I decided to show him what work with Zack would be like if I did absolutely everything in as timely a manor he wanted (which is pretty damn fast for an old man)....yeeeaaah. I was out of work to do on Tuesday. Although, this did get him to realize that I was full deserving of a raise with a comment "I believe you deserve a raise now, I enjoy your attitude and we appreciate everything you do here. I have to talk to Laveta, but we will review you next week".

Liars and thieves. They're liar and thieves. I waited until the end of October, no raise. They went to a convention in butt-f*ck Tennessee (almost quite literally) and told me I would get my review upon return, no raise. Christmas came, no raise (however! I did get a nice bonus in lieu of said raise, with the promise of a review at the beginning of the year). It's January, 2011. My student loans have increased and my self-esteem has not thanks to this company--well not just thanks to them. My own procrastination helped to dig this hole too.

I feel a change coming, like the wind and I just have open my sail and coast with it. There are other side goals to accomplish, parallel these resolutions. I want to tighten knots of those friendships I let come undone, grow closer and be more open with my immediate family, get into shape (generic American response here)...Go to my first Burning Man, Include more of my friends into JuicyVille at Elysium, start a vegetable garden (or a tomato plant will suffice), get my tattoo gun working and start practicing, venture to Six Flags at least once, try to eat more cheese in attempt to open my very picky palette and Love. Love more.

I see what just the concept of love does for a lot of people and the glow it gives my friends and family when they feel/know that you love them. I don't mind if it is cheesy, or lame or even if one day I find out it never existed at all. The idea is what I want to share with everyone and be shared with. I've never been the most upbeat or positive person; I can thank my narcotic tendencies to my parents...I don't think it was until I met

t this group of friends that I've almost known for 3 years now that I really grasped the idea of love being all anyone one person or group of friends or family need to have a good time. Sad that it took me this long to come to such a simple realization ( I don't mean to offend any of my old friends, you know I love you, but you also knew how I was a long time ago), but I'm glad I got to realize it nonetheless.

In concluding this very long post for everyone (probably just myself, seeing as how I have one follower currently, haha) This year is about Growth and Appreciation...and Love.