Grammar Grammar Grammar

I feel I should let people know that sometimes I will post like 20 mini Blogs in a single day, and other times I will post just a few a week. My style of writing tends to be Stream of Consciousness, which does not always lend itself well to the written word. So please keep this in mind as well as the fact that I will also will make numerous spelling and grammatical errors in my posts. Naturally I will endeavor to correct my post as I go along, both new & old, but you should be forewarned. Sending me nasty emails or leaving comments criticizing what I have written or what I have to say is fine, but just harping on my grammar, spelling & writing style is not. This Blog is mainly for fun, if you want something that is letter perfect or Yale graduate material you should go elsewhere! I was a computer graphics major in college, my main thing is Art for the most part. Plus artist or creative people in general are supposed to be horrid speller to begin with. This is just for fun and a way to express myself, nothing more and nothing less. If you find that the only thing you have to send or post to me or to most people is pure criticizm, than you might want to reflect on what that says about you as a person if you only have negative things to say. To quite Babmi, "If you don't have anything nice to say, you shouldn't say anything at all."

Friends: Can't live with them. Can't kill them & bury them in the woods.

I just realized that my sub title for this post is very misleading. I will expand upon that misleading theme at another time. Sorry for any confusion this might cause.

Originally I am from Northern California, which I have to say is a lot different from Los Angeles. And in some ways, much better. In the Bay Area I knew all of my friends last names, I knew where they lived and I even knew their parents as well as brothers and sisters. Here in LA, you are lucky if you know Simeon's last name. Which is why it was very hard for me to meet people when I first came here way back in 1992 for school ( CSUN, a horrible school & I would not recommend it unless you are a business major). I assumed I would be able to act as I did in the Bay Area and just approach people at random who I wanted to be friends with like I did back home. Apparently doing such things in LA is the equivalent of offering them crack or to take a big steamy dump on their chest. Which really is a shame, as it took a lot longer for me to make new friends here & that kind of takes it's toll on a person. Plus the Northridge earthquake happened in 1994 & pretty much all of the friends I had made, simply moved away or transferred to other schools. Not leaving a forwarding address or anything & since I didn't know their parents there was no way for me to track them down. But in LA this is just considered normal behavior apparently, people & friends drift in and out of your lives, which I feel is a shame. It is one of the (many) reasons that as soon as I have kids, if I have kids, I will move away from here. I do not want my kids to grow up to be shallow individuals or think that having a bunch of acquaintances is the same than having a few true & lifelong friends.

Transformers: Why is Michael Bay raping my childhood?

Transformers: Revenge of the fallen has finally come out on DVD and Blu Ray. Hence I have to comment on the fact that I do not like the current direction Hasbro has taken with the Transformers property, at least as far as the movies go. I feel that Hasbro/Michael Bay, Paramount or whatever powers behind the movies, simply have taken the names and sometimes the likenesses and just cobbled a bunch of random stuff together for profit. Without caring about the original subject matter of the 80's cartoon series, comics and toy line that started it all way back when. Almost no one and nothing is actually recognizable in the movies, aside from Optimus Prime, as almost no one looks or acts like they did in the original cartoon/toy line or should act based on their already established characters ( All the original toys had bio cards that detailed their personalities and part of their respective character histories). Like the only twins in the original Transformer universe are Sideswipe and Sunstreaker, not the racist black-ghetto stereotypes of Skids and Mudlfap. In fact Skids in the original cartoon was an intellectual theoretician , not some gold toothed black stereotype idiot they have him be in the film. And what is even more insulting is that Sideswipe was in the film, but not his twin Sunstreaker. He was also voiced by a black actor in semi stereotypical slang/speech patterns as well, adding further insult to injury. As for the overall humor of the films, I think it's pretty low brow and pandering in general. Plus I do not think that robots should fart, cough, spit, cry or piss like they have in both films thus far.

The Real World: Missed Opportunity

I was watching Big Brother last night. Something I almost never do, as I dislike the US version (Not enough swearing, sex or nudity for my tastes). And I couldn't help but think of the time I was a finalist for the Real World: Boston way back when. I got as far as the casting special that aired on Mtv, which was down to a pool of roughly 1,000 from close to 50,000 applicants I believe ( Correct me if I am wrong, as I have no idea of the true figures).

Relationships: Why I can't stand them!

I originally thought of a much better title for the topic of today's blog, but I forgot what it was and this one will have to do for the time being. If I happen to remember what it originally was I will update my original blog and make the appropriate changes. Basically I was reminded of some stuff that I have felt for a long time, after watching the Spanish language film Rudo y Cursi. In it Gael García Bernal's football-on-a-current-losing-streak character Cursi falls in love with a opportunistic newscaster named Maya who essentially uses him for his money and status and then leaves him for another player that she sees as being a trade up ( At least career wise and financially) . Which is not to say that all women are shallow, money grubbing and/or opportunistic ( I want to make it clear that I do not hate women, I just hate certain behaviors that a lot of women seem to display with some regularity). What I am more upset at is when people, men or women basically screw themselves over (or their friends/family/colleagues) because of the relationships they have or because of the people they claim to love. I have lost many a friend or seen many a friend destroy themselves over a woman (or a man as the case maybe, but for the rest of the article I will be talking about women mostly).

For the sake of argument I will be playing the devil's advocate and I will speak about women in general, but all my examples can be the same for men as well. When it comes to love and bad relationships, no one sex has a monopoly. A good example of this would be my former friends Matthias and Martin, both of whom I met in college where they were exchange students from Austria. We stayed in touch for years after they went back to Austria and eventually I went to visit them for the 1st time in their native home in 2000. I planned the trip for months in advance and both of them knew when I was coming and for how long, as well as far I would be traveling ( Roughly 8,000 miles I believe). When I finally got there Matthias was initially nowhere to be seen or even heard from. When I did finally manage to get a hold of him he claimed to be too busy to meet, despite the fact that time was running out on my visit to Austria. Eventually he did pop into a bar that me, Martin and some other people were in, but only for an hour or so. It turned out his girlfriend was one of those kinds of women who doesn't want their boyfriend to do anything or go anywhere without them or without their permission. Matthias was only dropping by to see us because his girlfriend was busy with work and wouldn't know he had snuck off to meet us. Something which to me is reason enough to dump someones ass (If anyone ever tells you who you can or cannot see, that is controlling behavior pure and simple. You do not want to have anything to do with such people, especially if it is a man! You are no one's slave, property or their bitch, so never act like it. Especially in the name of love!)!

I learned a long time ago that if someone is in love or even thinks they are in love. There is no reasoning with them, and complaining about their supposed love or trying to warn them of future problems will only damage your friendship. It's best to just remain silent and wait for the relationship to end on it's on, as they pretty much always do at some point). So initially I kept my mouth shut, but I was deeply disgusted, especially after matters got even worse. A few days before I was to leave Austria, Matthias finally agreed to meet me and Martin at Martin's house. We were planning to catch up on each other's lives and drink it up into the wee hours of the night, or at least that was the plan. Matthias' girlfriend was informed that this was our plan, and she also knew I had not seen Martin or Matthias for 4 years and I would only be in Austria for a total of 2 weeks ( Actually I think it was less than that, but I would have to check my passport). Traveling all the way from Los Angeles just to see my friends that I hadn't seen in years. Yet she called Matthias on his cell phone every 20 minutes as soon as he arrived just to complain about him not being with her or to remind him that tonight was their special night. Apparently their "Special Night" was code for some sort of a sex thing. Anyway I finally had to take Matthias' cell phone away from him after I said very loudly," That she knows where you are and what you are doing! She shouldn't be calling every 20 minutes, it's annoying as hell!" For the rest of the evening it was obvious that Matthias wasn't drinking as much as he usually does in the thought that he might drive home later, but we ending up getting wasted anyway and staying at Martin's all night. A few days later I left Austria and eventually returned to the US. When I returned to the States I was informed by Martin that Matthias' girlfriend actually said she was glad that I was gone, for now she had Matthias all to herself. Which if you know me, is just the wrong thing to say as I was infuriated by this comment! If a girlfriend of mine ever said something like that about a good friend, I would dump them right then and there. I then confronted Matthias about what his girlfriend said and pointed out that none of his friends get to see him because of her and that she was an insecure mess and no one really thought they were good together or would even last. He said that wasn't true but I dared him to ask him what his friends really and truly thought of her to prove my point. As guys just shut up about stuff like that and so he would never know what they actually thought unless he asked them to be honest with them. He only asked a few of his friends and after each of them said they didn't like her and agreed with what I had said earlier, so he stopped asking. Saying that he loved her and that she was perfect for him, and all that other stupid crap people in love sprout. The funny thing is a little bit later he went to Australia for either 6 months or a year, I can't recall, and proceeded to cheat on his so called love numerous times. Which just supports my overall view of most relationships in general. People claim to love people all too easily and freely, without really knowing what true love is or even acting accordingly. If someone truly loves you, they would never prevent, guilt or manipulate you from seeing one of your friends or into doing what they want for their own selfish reasons. Nor would you cheat on someone, for any reason, that you claimed to love. Yet day after day people continue to profess their love to those who are not deserving of their love in the first place, or lying to and cheating on the same people they claim to hold so dear. It's a very sad daily occurrence that's unfortunately escalating all the time. More on this topic later on and how Martin did something fairly similar to what Matthias did, and why we are all no longer friends.

Customer Served: A semi ongoing comic strip

I decided to post some comics about what I think, feel or personally experienced while I was working in the wonderful world of Retail Customer Service. These are work in progress so please feel free to give me feedback on my art, writing style and all that associated with the comics. Which I will try to create/post at least once a month if not more. With my schedule as it is now, it will be harder and harder to do as my class schedule is so varies in terms of times and locations. Which reminds me, I have to get back to studying for my Japanese test today. Sayoonara!

CUSTOMER SERVED: First Strip Completed September , 2009

Waiting to hear from the courts

I had my case against Best Buy about a week ago and am waiting to hear from the DLSE ( Department of Labor Standards and Enforcement). It doesn't usually take them too long to decide about a case, although I did have a lot of evidence to present and apparently they have to read through it. I know I will hear from them before the end of the month, but I am anxious as to the verdict. I will win for sure on some of the points since even the judge noticed that my former manager lied on the stand, but I am not sure if I will win on all points. The least I will be awarded is $2,000 and the most I will be awarded is around $4,000. Although like I said I expect Best Buy to appeal just because they can or to be spiteful, so then I will have to do it all over again. Which might take place in Civil Court rather than the DLSE courts, which don't cost a dime. Either way, wish me luck!

Customer Service Hell: Reasons why I will never work in retail again!

Like most people out there I have had to work for a living, and also like most people I have had my fair share of retail jobs. Which I have to say have by far been the absolute worst of any jobs I have had. Especially those that involve direct interaction with the public. For let's face, the public as a whole can be evil as well as dumb as dirt! My last retail Customer Service Job was at Circuit City. You know the fine upstanding company that went bankrupt and lied to their employees up until the last minute about it.

Things to Buy: If I ever get around to it that is

Here is a list of things I have been meaning to buy for a long time. If and when I buy something from the list, I will update it. Most likely the top have of the list will be what I buy first ( Additional items will be added at a later date).

1. Playstation 3

2. Xbox 360

3. New Canon Camera with at least 10 MP & a better zoom lense

4.

5. Oxford's Ancestors DNA profile ( It's like $600 and traces your family)

6.

7.

8.

9. New 30" (or above) TV that has a Digital Tuner built in

10. Decent Used Car

Playstation PS3 Games arrived today

Some people who have worked in retail before already know about the RLS Playstation site. Basically it's a site for employees of stores that sell Playstation products where they can take quizzes and tests and get free or greatly reduced Playstation products in return as a thank you. I have been doing it for years now, even though I no longer work for a company that would allow me to be a part of the site. Today I got Little Big Planet and Drake's Fortune. Drake's Fortune is a gift for my Uncle and Little Big Planet is actually my 10th PS3 game I own. Which is actually pretty funny since I don't even have a Playstation 3 yet. In fact I also have about 10 or
20 Xbox 360 games and I don't own a 360 either. It's on my ever growing list of Things to Buy.