Melissa's Blog

Sigh

2009-12-27T18:41:00.000-08:00

Another 3 hours of my life gone, to redesign my website yet again. Oh well, I think it looks pretty snazzy this time?

Ryan wants zombie brains!

2009-10-14T16:54:00.000-07:00

BRAAAAAINS!

Ricky

2009-10-14T16:49:00.000-07:00

Ricky was a kid I saw around town, but never knew. Sometimes I just see interesting-looking people and I like to draw them. Is that so bad? Creepy?

The Return of Banana Boy

2009-10-14T16:46:00.000-07:00

Oh Banana Boy, you are so utterly depressing.... you make my day. What could this Banana possibly be waiting for?

2009-10-14T16:43:00.000-07:00

Two watercolors I did a while ago. Just felt like sharing, but not necessarily putting them on my art page permanently.

2009-10-14T16:39:00.000-07:00

The young and the beautiful Cristiana, a charming youngster who used to hang out at the coffee shop where I worked. I miss her. :(

1950's Pen and Ink

2009-10-14T16:36:00.001-07:00

This is one of the very first drawings I did for college, for a pen and ink sketch. I found the picture on the internet, but now it's disappeared somewhere so we will never know the original in all its glory.

Home!

2009-09-25T11:30:00.001-07:00

In AK for a couple days to see my family (well, the family that is up here.) It is cold and rainy and the leaves have already turned. I forgot what it's like to live in a place that doesn't have fall.

Alright, I need some breakfast.

New Blog Layout

2009-08-22T16:30:00.000-07:00

I changed the background. Going to start using this as an updating tool. Like I don't already have enough social networking stuff on my hands. I think I am just going to use this to upload drawings and the like... stuff that I don't really deem professional enough to put on my website as a final piece, but that I still want people to see.
More to come later, after I pick up Nicole.

Summer is here!

2009-05-23T15:14:00.000-07:00

Well not quite yet, but it's been so nice these past 2 weekends and I have cool people to hang out with. Damn it's good to have friends in the city. I am going to try to update this thing more often... once a day maybe? At least once or twice a week. I'll be back with pics later. SQUASH FACED KITTIES TO BE HAD BY ALL!!

Art Bistro

2009-04-09T18:50:00.000-07:00

I submitted a design for the t-shirt contest for art bistro. They supplied the art bistro logo, but i decided to make my own. Mine is pretty unique from all the other ones.

and you can see the other ones and vote at http://www.artbistro.com/topics/11026-cast-your-vote-now-for-the-2009-artbistro-t-shirt-contest-winner/posts

Yayaya

2009-02-15T12:40:00.000-08:00

I finally got the Flash menu to work in Firefox. It was giving me a lot of trouble but I finally found a website that takes care of both the problems (one bit of code for IE, one bit of code for firefox)
I don't know if it works on Mac browsers, but I am going to find out later.

Had a great V-Day walking around Seattle and then had some great beer and potato curry at Elysian Brewhouse. I swear though, it's like a requirement at that place to be tall to be a waitress. All their waitresses are like 6 feet tall...

more news later

Updated!

2009-02-12T18:14:00.000-08:00

New New New Paintings and also a (sleek?) new look

After spending hours trying to make a sweet Flash header and menu-box thingy, it just was NOT working. I don't know. I spent like 10 hours trying to figure out a new layout and the background was going to be white, but then I just couldn't get things to work properly. Or they'd work properly in one browser and not in another. So I gave up and just decided to work with what I have. Put a new pic up and made the header smaller so it's not so obnoxious, toned down the colors a bit. It's craaaaaazazay!

I am working on a series illustrating random pictures of people. So far I have 2 and I have to say I have come close to the actual likeness of these people... too bad I can't draw myself. There's pretty much only one drawing/painting I've done of myself that actually even looks remotely like me. I just don't have that artist's touch. Some artists, many artists, have the ability and gift to see themselves and re-create themselves with all their flaws. There must be some sort of warped image I have of myself or something that stands in the way of me actually getting down to painting what I actually look like. No worries though, it's not like I'm the type of person who has to rely on self portraits or does a lot of them. I really don't.

New Year

2008-12-30T19:37:00.000-08:00

I have a job interview tomorrow. It's for a customer service representative position downtown. It's on the 21st floor of this building on 7th street. YEEEEEEEE. I looked up all these questions so that I'll do good, but for the most part all the interviews I've been to so far have been fairly casual.

I am also illustrating this lady, Sonja's, children's book. I could'nt get to sleep last night because I was excited thinking about it.

Tomorrow is New Year's so hopefully I start out with a new job. Cross your fingers for me, people of the world!

New Spot!

2008-11-12T22:38:00.000-08:00

I have a new art ALCOVE (it's the little office in my bedroom). I'm painting again. Regularly. And there's no time restrictions put on it, and it's not going to be under the scrutiny of some oldie art wash-up teacher. Yay! Life is grand.

I'll take pics and post them later (new space, and some new art). I'm doing one peice that's entirely based off something I found on the ground on my way home from work. It's great to get inspiration that way... from the weirdest places.

I am also in the process of making paintings... or rather, say, collages? mosaics? from bottle caps. I don't have enough of one color to do the painting that I want (gold and black) but we're working on it.

Now, to just get my art into a gallery so people see it...

Halloween a great success!

2008-11-01T12:09:00.000-07:00

and I am eating pumpkin pie and ice cream for breakfast.

mmmmm.

the party was a success, til travis decided to take my whole crew to capitol hill with him, because we are too lame.

ultimately we decided to take one of the last busses down there, saw a bunch of great costumes, and hung out at a piano bar where we managed to get bread and popcorn chicken at 1am (I pissed them off with my food order) but all in all I had a good halloween.

I saw too many people stumbling by drunkenly, one guy ran into the sign post on the corner and bounced off and fell over and probably hit his head on one of the parked cars, then he laid there for 10 minutes until his friend finally coaxed him up and whisked him away without his shoes (cause he had apparently taken them off while sitting there... because he hit his head?) another guy (younger boy) was scooting himself inside a doorway by a dumpster to go to sleep. and at that point i was just happy i was still coherent and had my friends who would make sure I wasn't alone scooting into an alleyway on capitol hill at 1am on Halloween....

and then we proceeded to stand in front of the gay dance club where a guy was stuffing shit down his skin-tight gold spandex pants to make it look like he had an ass in front (i'm not sure if he was just trying to keep his balls warm? maybe he was..) and then took a $20 cab ride home.
you would figure they'd have busses running late on halloween?

I figured out I have a polling place (Greenwood Christian Church...?) so I get to vote after all!

Hooray for all, and come to my birthday on Sunday. I'll be too drunk to walk downstairs to get out of my apartment. (I hope.
) Shower me with presents!

Election Day

2008-10-29T17:27:00.000-07:00

Election Day is looming. Why can't we just have it now? I'M READY! I'M READY TO GO! I have been for months now. I just want this to be over.

As election day moves closer, the youtube videos from the crazy Republicans get worse and worse, more racist and more violent.

I'm kind of afraid actually, but SOMEBODY has to win next week. And either way, there will be riots...

Hooray for American politics.

I feel ashamed about European countries looking over here at us. UGHHHH!

October

2008-10-17T15:52:00.000-07:00

October is my favorite month, really... why can't fall be as long as the other seasons?

a street near my house.

enjoy

Old Dudes...

2008-10-13T15:20:00.000-07:00

At every cafe I have ever worked at, there's always been some crazy, obnoxious old dude that everyone thinks is really weird that I absolutely love.
In today's case the man's name is George, and our conversation today went like this:

George: (holding 2 pairs of pants that he brought in with him)
Me: What? Did you steal some hobos pants?
George: No, I got these for 99 cents at Value Village! (looking amazed, shows me the tag)
Me: Oh yea, Sale day?
George: Yeah, I got this shirt for 99 cents, this tie, these pants (pointing at stuff he was wearing), these shoes, underwear, everything.
Me: Ew you bought underwear at Value Village?
George: (looking at me like I'm crazy) Yeah!??
Me: Did you bleach them?
George: You don't BLEACH underwear...
Me: You do if you bought it at Value Village!

and then he comes up with this crazy idea that I'm going to be his website designer and we're going to buy clothes for 99 cents at Value Village and then re-sell them online for 10 bucks.

Hey. At least it kept me entertained for a good 30 minutes!

Love never blows up and gets killed...

2008-10-09T22:57:00.000-07:00

I was driving back home today from Joann's Fabrics (which sucked, by the way...) and I went a different way than when I came, and I drove by these old brick schoolhouse buildings surrounded by golden-leaved trees intertwining above the street. I'm going to go back tomorrow and take pictures.

I bought a lot of stuff today, and after becoming so consumer conscious over the last year, I always feel this endless guilt for buying stuff, especially if its from a huge chain store.
But I bought sugar, baking cocoa, food coloring and some other baking stuff so I can do more baking. I'm really into baking now. It makes me happy. It just feels good to make your own stuff and know exactly what goes into it.
And I also bought PUMPKINS! And they're going to be awesome as soon as I get off this computer and finish carving them.
And I bought stuff that I'm gonna make my own t-shirts with, and some stuff for my halloween costume, which is, by the way:

And I pretty much already have everything excep the shirt and shoes, and I know where to get the shirt.

This IS

2008-09-29T16:53:00.000-07:00

... the best illustration yet.

Love Palin's face! You can just visualize her saying "John Mccain makes tooties in his pants! Tee hee!"

Agh! I can't get enough of it!

Source: The Stranger

Impressive

2008-09-15T09:26:00.001-07:00

and I'm actually kind of impressed that 3 doors down is still making music...

this video is weird.

Finally in Seattle

2008-09-15T09:20:00.000-07:00

This will be short. Finally got all my stuff moved to Seattle. Luckily we lived with Eric's mom so we still had time to go back and get our stuff if we forgot anything...

My parents have been visiting for the last couple days and we shopped til we dropped, at leas according to my standards. I don't think I'll need to see another mall until Christmastime....

and other than that I just have to wait to get the internet until FRIDAY. urghh.. although until then I get to come down the street and buy a coffee to use their internet... but that's ok because they're playing OK music videos on VH1.

Al Gore: Defender of Earth!

2008-08-23T14:45:00.000-07:00

Why can't Al Gore be prez?
SOLAR, WIND, GEOTHERMAL!
Al Gore calls for completely renewable energy resources within 10 years. Without naming names, he bashes McCain's proposed "solution" to high gas prices toward the end. But you can tell that he is calling McCain out on his bull.
Gore is such an epic speaker! How did he not get elected!?? OH WAIT...

I may be moving to Seattle as soon as September 1st. I applied for an apartment today. I could very well sell my car... however, should I ? Or should I keep it, and park it, to make sure that one less car is on the road? Because if I sell it, that means I'm doing better for the planet, but it still means that someone else is gonna be driving that car around.

Oh the sacrifices we will have to make.

Protest McCain's Energy Policies...

2008-08-18T00:39:00.000-07:00

Protest McCain's Energy Policies (or lack there of...)

When: Tue, Aug 19, 5pm
Where: Westlake Center, Seattle

This event is being coordinated by moveon.org seattle chapter.
come. bring signs. bring video cameras. i don't care. just show up.

Root Beer

2008-07-26T21:39:00.001-07:00

Also, I love Virgil's Root Beer. It's the most delicious Root Beer I've ever tasted, AND there's no high-fructose-corn-syrupy bullshit.

Saturday Nights

2008-07-26T20:36:00.000-07:00

Sitting at home in my dark basement room, with my one light in the damp corner, reading the Stranger online and pondering about the future... let's just say not the most pro-active thing I could be doing on a Saturday night. Because I could be at the Capitol Hill Block Party (even though John says it's bullshit, and I missed VW anyway...), but I can't even afford $18 for the ticket, let alone food or drinks I would have to buy, plus a ferry pass back. I could be at my old work, bothering my ex-co-workers, but it's too much wasted gas to get there when I don't really need to go there. And so i sit.

So let's be honest here. Nobody reads my blog anyway. I have like $300 to my name. I don't have a job or a steady income (because I'm focusing on my last semester at college), although, that may change soon. I am generally good at saving money, so it stresses me out to be this poor. But not in a how-am-i-ever-going-to-pay-my-bills way, more like a i'm-so-poor-it's-almost-funny kind of way. Because it really doesn't stress me out. I have a good enough relationship with my parents that I know they would give me some money. I'm not in debt up to my knees, I'm not about to lose my house, I'm not any of these things that are plaguing Americans at the current moment. But I still feel the impending doom that will affect even me.

I was just reading an article in the Stranger called "The United States of Anxiety." The first paragraph says, "When people ask me why I sold my house in Madrona last month and moved to a rental apartment on Capitol Hill, I say, "The economy is going to tank." But that's not exactly accurate: The economy has been tanking since last August. I just sense that things will get much worse before they improve. When I call my brother Paul, in California, he insists, "There will be a depression in two years like nothing we've seen before." The last paragraph says, "I realized yesterday that my tax rebate check, which may never find its way to my new apartment, seems more like a cry for help from the government than an act of assistance. It is a last-ditch, shortsighted attempt to prop up the illusion of a way of life that can't be sustained on a national—or a personal—level. It's enough to buy something pretty or pay one ledge off a big credit-card bill. It's enough to make the heart slow down, just for a second, before the backhoe loader next door starts crashing around again, taking dirt out of a big hole and piling it somewhere else." (Read this article here.

Kind of spot on to how I've been feeling lately. The economy is/is going to tank, yet I'm not scrambling back and forth to get anything done. See, I'm a young person, and I haven't yet had the chance to go out living beyond my means. The good news is now, I'll probably never get that chance. I'll probably never get the chance to do a lot of things that people have been enjoying for the last 50 years (read: shopping, buying houses, having children, repeat). But that doesn't bother me. It doesn't even bother me that everything is going to have to change, which might result in severe discomfort. No.. discomfort, I'm looking forward to that.
I've been reading a lot of articles/books to the same tune lately. Take the adbusters article, which says that once people make 10,000/year, any more than that does little to contribute to happiness. So basically, once the essentials are covered, you don't need to work more. And in fact, we're spending so much time working that we don't have time for friends and family, and that's what makes us happy. Whodathunk?
It reminds me of my cultural studies class where we talked about how Native Indians can't adapt to the "American" way of life, because they just can't put their heads around it. In their culture, one lives in the valley so that his house is protected (meaning he doesn't build his house in fire/hurricane/tornado row). He fishes for 5 hours on Monday and collects all the food he needs for the entire week. For the rest of the week, he relaxes. Could Americans ever do this? Could we concievably work 8 hours a week and accomplish all that needs to be done, so that we could relax for once in our lives? It's a novel concept, but it also makes me dread looking for a job. Maybe I'll just find a good paying part time job for starters...
Anyway, I forgot where I was going with this, and I really want Root Beer. So more later... maybe.

Nostalgia

2008-07-20T21:14:00.000-07:00

TOYS!

These pics make me happy.

That is all.

Jobs!

2008-07-19T11:36:00.000-07:00

I am currently searching for jobs in the Seattle area.

I have found a couple that look promising... I am excited.
If I get a job at a cool place then I don't have to work food service ever again, and that makes me very happy.

Ahem...

2008-07-12T23:09:00.000-07:00

I'm about to watch Office Space... which I've been told is my personality in a movie.

Let's prepare...

Thesis

2008-06-29T23:27:00.001-07:00

I'm knee deep in writing my thesis right now. I'm finding some really good sources and things to write about... but I can't concentrate anymore because I'm so tired... blah..

I'm writing my thesis on Pop Art (because it was the start of anti-consumerism art, kinda, even though the artists were kinda glorifying consumerism while questioning it), and about how I still think it's relevant today, because we still live in a consumer society. So basically I do a short (long) history of Pop Art as a movement as a whole, about how it tried to expose the manipulative elements of consumerism, and then I fast forward to today. I'm writing about everything, from street art to ecological art to anti-consumer art and movements. It's gonna be epic.

Everything over the past week has made me more optimistic about there being a sort of network of people working, maybe futile-ly, to wake people up.
Chris Jordan and Dave Bruno are two of my heroes right now. Jordan even lives in Seattle, maybe I could even orchestrate a meeting with him somehow.
The internet is amazing.

Georgetown Music Fest

2008-06-19T11:40:00.000-07:00

I randomly decided last weekend to go to the Georgetown Music Fest, and it was a good decision indeed. I went on Saturday, I got there about 2 and we watched some of the bands. I liked how they had the bands set up so you didn't have to miss one band to see another, but it was also easy to walk back and forth if you wanted to see another band. And also, there were enough people there, but not so many that I had to wait like an hour to use the one toilet that I knew of in the area. At the end of the day, it wasn't half bad. And we later found out that half the people walking around were actually in the bands that were playing, so that was surprising.

Most notably were Pwrfl Power (which he is apparently starting to get a big name in Seattle.) He played guitar and before his one song, he pointed out to the audience and said "NICE JACKET!" really loudly and I don't think anybody knew who he was pointing at. And then his song was like "you have a very nice jacket, the nicest jacket in my town." Weird... hah.

We went back and forth from Jules Maes to see the bands playing in there. Leeni impressed my boyfriend because she was playing her gameboy music... thingamajig. I generally thought the back stage at Jules Maes was too loud so I watched Hockey's and Denelian's sets, but I couldn't stay back there after that. My hearing is already shot. Hockey was a better band than we thought, kinda catchy. We were thrown off a little at first by the guy having no sleeves and wearing a camo hat... that's usually a bad sign. Denelian had a really impressive drummer and I want a drum set :(

Then we went to watch the Pink Snowflakes, which was very entertaining because they had a bubble machine. And some fancy schmancy unicorn carpet that they had flung over the front of the stage that looked like one of those glow in the dark posters with the felt that you can buy from the store and color yourself...

We saw the last song from Slender Means and were actually kinda bummed 'cause they sounded like they were pretty good too.

Aqueduct was awesome as always, but I think they had the keyboard up way too loud which was piercing my ears. I always like watching Aqueduct 'cause they always look like they're just out there doing what they love. They always look like they're having so much fun, and just playing (awesome) music for people. I've seen Aqueduct a couple times, most memorably at Sasquatch '05 (when it wasn't horribly overpriced) and a week later at EndFest which was much more enjoyable.

Then we watched the Lashes and SURPRISE! Somebody took my picture.

Whoo! Famous!!! Me!! I look like Eric just said something really annoying and I'm like "baha" and he's like "ugh, it was supposed to be a joke."

My friend myspaced me and said "Look what I saw in the Seattle PI!" and you can see more pics here

The Lashes were really good though, but I've seen them better (with more people) when I saw them two years ago on Halloween when they played with Schoolyard Heroes and Vendetta Red. That was a phenomenally good show. Mostly because Ben Lashes was all hot and dressed up like a zombie, and they were one of the first bands to play so all the assholes hadn't come to punch people in the mosh pit quite yet.

We didn't stay for Thee Emergency, even though I really wanted to, but we had to catch a bus back to downtown so we could catch the ferry back to Bremerton (booooooooo! I hate Kitsap. Nothing this cool ever happens here.)

In the coming weeks I'm looking forward to Gay Pride Fest and Beer Fest. It's gonna be a good summer!

Oyyy

2008-06-13T12:35:00.000-07:00

I went to Albertson's the other day to get a drink before I headed off to school, and they had this huge display of general mills cereal that was on sale for $2. What caught my eye was the Cheerios, which... I just gotta say, I love cheerios, and the store-brand "Toasty O's" or whatever they're called, just aren't the same.
So I grab a box of Cheerios and Kix, and I go get my drink and then I go pay. Regular price for the Cheerios was $5.49! HOLY SHIT! $5.49 for a box of fucking cereal? Really?

We're all going to die. We're all just going to die.

Dreary Days

2008-06-09T22:35:00.000-07:00

I think Western Washington is an amazing place, but this weather has got to go.

It's JUNE! Should I still be wearing a hoodie when I go to school? I thought this was supposed to be around the time that I was wearing light clothes and still sweating to death...

Well, looks like that Vitamin D deficiency of mine isn't going anywhere soon.

YAAAAAAAY! Blog.

2008-06-06T10:02:00.000-07:00

I am now hosting my blog from blogspot at my website. I'm really excited I could actually do this!
In other news, last night we scored a copy of Wii Fit! It was amazing and we played until midnight.
I didn't get to go to Art Walk last night, because it was raining and I felt like crap. Incidentally, I didn't feel like walking around Seattle feeling like crap and being wet and cold in the rain. Oh well, next month.
I can't wait to move back to Seattle. Kitsap and me don't mix well.

It's so close, I can almost taste it!