cheston

Art is like a gentle breeze in a soulmate's backyard, insomuch that no one purchases it.

http://store.6x6gallery.com/marriagebychestongasik.aspx
http://store.6x6gallery.com/readabookbychestongasik.aspx

These paintings of mine were on display at the 6x6 Gallery in New York for the two months preceding the present.

I have a cleaning scheduled for next Tuesday at AC Dental.

Somehow I'm worried they're going to make a mistake.

I figure they must have mishaps all the time, which is why they wanted to name themselves "Accidental", but they couldn't even do that without screwing up a few letters.

This is the same reason I didn't go to Occidental College.

Let it be known that I am temporarily done working.
I spent a core of three years at Tricore, and that is plenty for a few things:

1. Money. I would not leave a job without another one lined up if I thought I was going to flounder in a sea of financial dearth.
   
   I don't think I'm "throwing money in the garbage", although I did have a dream about that. I was taking out the trash and found it full of old-style 20's, which I somehow knew were mine and proceeded to dig out. Today when I got cash back during my purchase from the grocer, two out of five 20's were old-style. Spooky!
   
   
2. Knowledge. I've learned quite a bit more about ActionScript, enough to program a training module or two, I'd say.
   
   
3. Fulfillment. This one's vague on purpose! It hints at the concept of happiness without the ridiculous implications that work would ever have me smiling up to my nose. I reached my upper lip at best. Anyhow, this particular job was typically light on the fulfillment aspect, but it was an okay fit for where I was in my life when I began it. That time has not been now for quite some time now.

What's next?

I suppose I have options.
My original plan was to work on the personal projects I've been neglecting. I have one more trick up my sleeve that I could use to enter the impenetrable world of professional comic books. I also have several ideas for webby sites and the like. However, this too shall not come to pass...? Companies are fast to talk to me, and I have a few ironing boards in my fireplace right now that might sweep me off my unemployed feet before anyone can parse whether my "No" means "Yes".

Should auld Verdicts be forgot, and never post'd t'your minds?

Primer
Remember when I wanted to see this? It turned out to be the only non-Eastwood movie my friend Michelle owns.
I snoozed a little during its airing, which was especially unfortunate for my ability to follow it. I probably lost more than I did during other notable sleeps: Pirates of the Caribbean 2, Superman Returns, Harry and the Hendersons (I dreamt an alternate ending in my youth), most inclusions in my German expressionist film class...
During my conscious moments, Primer impressed me with its clever concepts but dehydrated me with its ultra-dry delivery.
Verdict: A "willfully pretentious exercise in obfuscation" ;)

It's Complicated
The title is false advertising. It's not nearly as complicated as Primer.
Also, what the heck? This movie can't possibly be good.
Verdict: Quite good
Really? Well, I'll be darned.

Twilight: New Moon
Ha ha, now this one can't be good.
I still enjoy the forests of Washington, and this time around there were some other visual treats, especially for you ab-loving ladies. Sadly, they toned down the teenage awkwardness a little.
Verdict: Mostly ruined by a senseless ending, not its other trappings

Knife in the Water
Whoa, like, imagine if a hitchhiker went boating with rich folks.
It all felt very real. It's probably what would actually happen, down to the individual moves in Pick-up Sticks.
Modern movies could benefit from incorporating this level of realism, this level of simplicity. I was a little worried nothing was going to happen.
Verdict: Good enough through most of it, but I'm glad something eventually happened

Fantastic Mr. Fox
The rest of my family liked it more than I did. I loved the visual style and much of its approach to humor, but somehow its lack of child-friendliness put me off a bit. Is the moral that it's okay for "wild animals" to ignore the wishes of their wives and close friends, thereby endangering everyone?
Verdict: That is a crappy moral; at least it's aesthetically pleasing!

This list thus far
It seems like it's only movies, except for this item.
Verdict: F+

I will post more soon, including a countdown of the best cassettes from that summer yard sale purchase.

Year-end Assessment
Hey, let's look back at the New Year's Suggestions I made to myself in January. We'll see how far I've gotten.

1. Kick most Teflon use.
This one is probably my biggest success story. I use my cast iron pan all the time, and I cannot name an instance when I've lapsed in this regard. I also use recycled tin foil instead of a non-stick tray in the Toast-R-Oven. I might still be breathing in some Teflon when my roommate uses his pans or George Foreman, but I've made the change in my own habits and that's the most I can expect.

2. Minimize my plastic bag waste.
This one has at least been a success at the grocery store. I typically remember to bring my canvas bags for food. Unfortunately, I seem to forget them when I do other miscellaneous shopping, such as visiting the comic book store. I still use Ziplocs for a few things, too. What else can I put the remainder of a bacon package in? I usually only cook half a pound at once.

3. Consume fewer chickens.
I can only name two instances in 2009 when I ate non-free-range chicken. One was a "You have to try a slice of this pizza" scenario, and the other was... uh... me eating General Tso's chicken. I think I've been clean since March.
The sad news is that it doesn't put my animal consumption down to just pigs and cows. I was shocked to learn that all of Subway's deli meats are turkey-based, and I get their subs pretty regularly. Also, I was normal at Thanksgiving.

4. Get a better job.
This hasn't happened. In fact, my job has gotten busier and therefore worse. Long-distance job searching is especially hard.

5. Get my own place.
This hasn't happened either, but it's related to #4.

6. Find happiness with a girl.
I guess I technically did this, just not permanently enough. However, I just met someone new today! She paints other artists' sculptures and has a bootleg DVD of Rankin-Bass' The Life of Adventures of Santa Claus. Pitter pat, pitter pat.

TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE, The Answers: Part 4 of 4
Sorry! I didn't mean to be so slow with the answers!

October:

1. I won "weirdest costume" in the office by wearing a dollar store item for the second year in a row.
   
   LIE!
   I did repeat my dollar store success, but the Groucho Sharx glasses of yesteryear were replaced by a freakishly horrifying mask, not an oddity. Therefore the category I won was "scariest costume", not "weirdest". The prize was a lot weaker, too. Instead of winning a $40 Barnes & Noble gift card, I walked away with an H1N1 gift basket (a gag gift containing tissues, hand sanitizer, Tamiflu [an empty box], et al).
   
   
2. I wished my dad happy birthday from a turnpike rest stop because it was almost midnight.
   
   TRUTH!
   I played in a Magic: The Gathering tournament in Brooklyn that day, and I performed well enough to leave really late. I was 31st out of 226 players. I suppose if I had made Top 8 and played in the finals, I would have missed wishing Dad happy birthday altogether! So, sometimes losing is worthwhile. The rest stop was very accommodating, replete with payphones and a comfortable nearby chair for sitting. We talked for over an hour.
   
   
3. I bought a painting without knowing anything about the artist, flipped through a graphic novel in Barnes & Noble three weeks later, and noticed it was by the same artist.
   
   TRUTH!
   The timing of this explanation is very apropos! Starting this Friday, I will have two paintings on display at the gallery where this purchase happened. It's Manhattan's Six by Six Gallery. A friend operates this newly opened space that sells 6" x 6" canvases to artists who return them covered in visual manifestations of ideas ("Art"). I purchased Danica Novgorodoff's Iceland without the knowledge that she recently completed a graphic novel called Refresh, Refresh. I added the book to my Wish List after typing that last sentence but before typing this one.
   

TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE, The Answers: Part 3 of 4

September:

1. I danced near a window in a tie-dye shirt.
   
   TRUTH!
   This one's not false whatsoever. The annual Labor Day dance on Cushings Island had a Woodstock theme, so my cousins and I made tie-dye shirts. The actual dancing happened on a porch, and a few of us did intentionally "fun-looking" (absurd) dances by the dining room window to entice anyone inside to join.
   
   
2. I saw a fake German theater burn to the ground while in a real German theater.
   
   LIE!
   If you figured out how this one would be possible, then you easily deduced that what I watched burn to the ground was a fake French theater full of Germans. That's right; I watched Inglourious Basterds in Germany, and it indeed felt surreal.
   
   
3. I mistakenly thought "lovey" was a word.
   
   TRUTH!
   An old school chum of mine is further educating herself at MIT, and we met in a small cafe to catch up and play Scrabble. I won the game, but I probably shouldn't have, given the points that came from the non-word "lovey". Due to a strange alignment of celestial bodies (or of human bodies in Somerville), the couple at the table next to us were also playing Scrabble. I guess everyone carries boards around these days.
   

TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE, The Answers: Part 2 of 4

August:

1. On average, the yard sale cassettes I bought during August cost 10 cents each.
   
   LIE!
   That would be pretty impressive if I had purchased cassettes that cheap. Instead, I purchased them even cheaper! When I arrived on bike at my third or fourth sale of the morning, I thought I might leave with a few choice tapes in each cargo pocket. As fate would have it, though, the man offered me his 100 cassettes for a total of four dollars. I had to return later in my car.
   
   
2. I went drinking in New York City with a lady who worked on The Venture Bros.
   
   TRUTH!
   One of the benefits of everyone I know dropping the ball on buying tickets to the Ponyo pre-screening in NYC was that I was free to converse with others in the ticket pick-up line. The lively woman behind me worked as a producer on The Venture Bros. We chatted about Miyazaki and about her current company, which was potentially seeking people who know Flash. It hasn't led to a job, but it did lead to some social libations after the movie.
   
   
3. I drove my car for six hours without wearing shoes.
   
   TRUTH!
   After digging a giant hole in the dirt (in grand LiveJournal tradition), I left my shoes outside for the night. Thunderstorms started and never really stopped. My options the next morning were to either drive to my cousin's Connecticut wedding in soaking wet shoes or without shoes at all. My fancy shoes (the non-digging pair) were in the trunk, and there was no easy way to extract them without the world thunderstorming their decency away. If you tack on some construction to account for the added hours, you begin to see how this went down.
   

TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE, The Answers: Part 1 of 4

July:

1. I intermittently wore a fleece at the second "Freedom Fest" I attended this year.
   
   TRUTH!
   I'm not sure why the same county is allowed to have two completely unrelated events both called "Freedom Fest" within weeks of each other. The first was a lame event fraught by karaoke and age maximums on inflatable giraffes. The second was a sweet fair that occurred on a strangely chilly July 3rd.
   
   
2. I won a stuffed turtle by aiming water but promptly gave it (the turtle, not the water) to a nearby child.
   
   LIE!
   I wish this happened, but the nearby child had the nerve to win the water game himself! I don't recall what variety of stuffed animal the boy won, so I combined this story with the time I won a turtle in a dart game and gave it to my dad for Father's Day.
   
   
3. I watched a friend perform her self-written two-woman play at a winery.
   
   TRUTH!
   This particular playwright is the one who borrowed my fleece during item #1. The winery's event was called "Women Helping Women," and the play involved a high-powered exec talking about relationships to her neighbor in the next restroom stall! Other entertainment included poetry, Commedia dell'arte, and belly dancing.
   

No posts since June?

Let's play TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE for each month that has happened to completion since then.

Your job is to either guess the lies or just read these lists and feel uncertainty.

July:

1. I intermittently wore a fleece at the second "Freedom Fest" I attended this year.
2. I won a stuffed turtle by aiming water but promptly gave it (the turtle, not the water) to a nearby child.
3. I watched a friend perform her self-written two-woman play at a winery.

August:

1. On average, the yard sale cassettes I bought during August cost 10 cents each.
2. I went drinking in New York City with a lady who worked on The Venture Bros.
3. I drove my car for six hours without wearing shoes.

September:

1. I danced near a window in a tie-dye shirt.
2. I saw a fake German theater burn to the ground while in a real German theater.
3. I mistakenly thought "lovey" was a word.

October:

1. I won "weirdest costume" in the office by wearing a dollar store item for the second year in a row.
2. I wished my dad happy birthday from a turnpike rest stop because it was almost midnight.
3. I bought a painting without knowing anything about the artist, flipped through a graphic novel in Barnes & Noble three weeks later, and noticed it was by the same artist.

Do you think paper promotional mailings to "go paperless" net positive?

Like, does the message directly cause enough people to choose paperless billing that the company saves more paper than is used to promote the system?

If not, what do you think is the reasoning behind the mailings? Are they to create buzz? Does creating the illusion of paper-consciousness put the company in better public favor?

If someone's computer were otherwise disempowered, how would the environmental impact of booting it just to pay the bill compare to the paper used for paying it ye olde skool way?
I guess it may depend on whether enough people switch that it eliminates an entire mail truck... unless two mail trucks are added to deliver the "go paperless" promos.

"I never calculated this data without going paperless during the process. Ask Mr. Owl."

Can we go back to calling them walkmen now?

I get why we switched to "discmen". We needed to differentiate.
New technology demanded that we stop walking; otherwise the laser would skip.
I suppose we didn't start discing—or at least I personally didn't play frisbee more often—so there was a bit of faulty parallel structure, but "ridethebusman" would have been inelegant. I cannot fault the discman era nomenclature.

We've had iPods for a while now. Well, I've had mine 6 months, society's had them 8 years, and you probably have a Zune or something (an "MP3 player"). What a horrible way to go through life!

Clearly we've regained the ability to walk.
So, let's call a spade a spade... uh, a digman.
If you have an iPod Video, that's a watchman.
The Touch is a touchman. The iPhone is a talkman (hopefully also a listenman).
Technically, they'd all be multitaskmen, but I'm not being technical. I'm being serious.

I accept today for what it was.

I rode my bicycle, which led me to a ninja/pirate-themed yard sale.
You may reread that sentence if you'd like.

The items for sale were not connected to the theme. It was just two young guys, each in a costume, having a yard sale. The ninja gave me a free paper throwing star.

The majority of their items were awesome to look at, but unjustifiable to own. Unopened Star Wars BendEms, a nice plastic Charmander, and at least three boxes of Jyhad cards graced their tables. They also had lots of unique pinball bumper caps, due in part to the pirate's mother who works as a pinball machine refurbisher. One had the Starship Enterprise on it. See what I mean? That's awesome to look at on a table and know it exists, but if you bought it, what would you do with it?

I bought Total Recall on DVD for a dollar. It fit in my cargo pocket, and life resumed as I biked away.

Ever since buying wiimotes with company money at Target and learning they have a Pizza Hut Express, I've made sure to leave the office for occasional breadstick lunches there. It's nice to have a change of scenery in the middle of the day. Sometimes after eating I stroll near the woods behind the building, which are unfortunately chained off. Other times I walk around the store.

These are the days in which I overhear humor.

#1

---

A child, maybe five or six years old, wanted to check out Target's toy section.
"Okay, five minutes," his mother governed.
"This is five minutes?" the boy asked in cuteness and confusion, holding up three fingers. The mother, it seems, was also only extending three.
She looked at her hand and revised, "Oh. Three minutes."

The boy learned a valuable lesson about asking dangerous questions this day.

#2

---

I didn't hear the question, but the response of the employee in the computer aisle was, "I couldn't tell ya. My wife is more computer-savvier than I am."

What an excellent premise! I hope this guy typically works in that department.

Even if he doesn't, shouldn't his recommendation be a "more computer-savvier" Target employee?
Who cares about his wife? If he gave me that line, I'd demand her number.

#3

---

"Can I help you with something?"

I'm in the video game aisle at this point, and much to my elation, the question is coming from the less computer-savvier employee.
He's not talking to me, though. A large-nosed woman says, "Sure. Do you know what Mario Kart is?"

"Do I know what it is, or do I know where it is?"

Then there's a small pause.

"Well, all I know is that it's a racing game," he finishes.

The woman then found Mario Kart herself.

EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH! I insist.

I forgot to post about the time in the park.
I walked past a seated woman on a bench and her dog.
The dog neither moved nor barked.
"That was a good boy," said the woman.

I hope she was talking about me.

Amidst the hustle and subsequent bustle of the holiday season, lots of folks were getting arrested for drunken revelry. At least one drunkard tried to hide from the police in the "garden warehouse" section of a store where I was shopping.

Do you know what I mean by a garden warehouse? They sell hoses and plants in a section that looks like nobody bothered preparing it for the public.

"Okay, time for a boat tour."
The problem with this boat tour was the ever-increasing number of penguins aboard the ship. It began as a harmless, albeit bizarre, coincidence of nature. Many a tourist photographed these penguins, and many a delighted child smiled at them.

One of my co-workers (Oh, I see, I work aboard this ship) expressed a concern about a fire hazard. The penguins were blocking all the doors and walkways, and their population boom showed no signs of abatement.
"I wouldn't worry about it," I said in placative dismissal. "I've seen this before. There are never really that many penguins." I produced a photograph of a previous boat trip with only a few penguins sitting on the benches.

Well, despite my irrefutable evidence, more and more penguins kept showing up, forcing us to return early. One simply cannot remain out at sea in the face of such a safety violation. Somehow the boat plowed its way through a nearby pile of garbage and started driving across the grassland.

Four thoughts crossed my mind:

1. Maybe the fishy smell of that garbage pile was what had attracted the penguins in the first place.
2. How is a boat traveling across grass?
3. Ah! It has wheels! Some inventor must have added them!
4. Oh my goodness! The inventor is one of the drunkards from earlier, and he's at the helm!

He was driving so recklessly that nearly everyone abandoned ship. Eventually he was zooming at top speed across active railroad tracks and through city streets. I stayed aboard because there was something strangely familiar about this drunken inventor. Just who was he?

We parked the boat at a house, and I noticed we were being followed by a cop. But then the cop hugged the drunkard and called him brother! They went inside to join the rest of the Cratchit family for Christmas dinner.
That's right! This mystery character was Bob Cratchit all along!

"A Christmas Carol!" I thought to myself. "Bob Cratchit's been re-imagined as a reckless drunken boat engineer. What a brilliant idea!" I didn't think this as words, of course. It was more of a sensation, joy combined with sudden understanding.

I was welcomed inside by the Cratchit family, and I made small talk with a visiting comics creator. Was it Alan Moore? Peter Milligan? I'm not sure who this guy was, but after our conversation he gave me a book about himself.

There was a brief section back at "home" with my Mom, but I forget the details. I got in late and she expected me to eat pizza.
"Mo-om, I just ate pizza at the Cratchits'!"
"Cheston, you need to eat! It's not healthy!"

The next bit that I recall took place on a bus departing from a Magic tournament. My seatmate was perusing the [Alan Moore?] history book from earlier, commenting how bad all the movies based on his comics had been. I agreed. Then he asked me how I fared in the tournament.

"Oh, I was doing pretty well," I explained. "4-1."

4-1.

4-1?

I still have a chance of winning this! Stop the bus!
I ran back to the building to play in Round 6.

Soft Chinchilla, Chapter the Second
in which images appear online

My Mom sent me pictures of my newly repainted former bedroom.
Are you curious how it looks?
( Possibly not! )

My bedroom is going to be soft chinchilla.
That is a color.

It will also not be my bedroom.

No, I'm not getting kicked out of my current place.
My Mom is repainting my childhood bedroom. She may rent it to a local college student.

I had to carry nine long boxes (the white ones that hold 300 comics each) down two flights of stairs to store them on tables in the basement. Such is life.

I hope the tenant likes soft chinchillas and basements full of comics.

When life gives you lemon syrup, make something way too sweet.

My initial plan at the Westborough Service Plaza soda fountain was to put a splash of lemonade in my Barq's, but it came out really slowly. "Huh, okay, I guess it's just slow. I'll wait."
It turns out if something seems odd, it is probably odd for a reason. In this case the lemonade was out of the water with which it mixes the syrup.
I probably jinxed myself by writing about kludgy beverage tastes earlier in the week. This one takes the kludgy cake... the kludgy, really lemony cake. I drank it all regardless and have no (related) regrets.

Hey, let's talk music for a moment.
Did I mention that I bought my first-ever iPod back in January? Errh, look at that. I didn't.
Well, I was a tad premature seeking Circuit City bargains, but I needed something for the flight to Florida (a trip implied here and here) and one nano had an "open box" discount. That was great at the time.

The recent repercussion of this purchase is that post-discman-breakage Cheston has a new device for connecting to his tape adapter during lengthy drives to and from Massachusetts. Nothing improves my quality of life quite like grooving to the Yesterdjur Yestermir Yesterday compilation.

What's that you say? If I'm going to talk about Swedish electronic music I've enjoyed recently, you'd rather it be something you can find in stores? Well, there's Fever Ray... but I already kind of blew my facebook choosin'-five-things load on Fever Ray.
I originally felt like it was miscategorized (shut up, spellcheck) in the Dance section at Best Buy, but I guess the motions of this freaked out girl qualify as dancing. I rescind my internal complaint.

More music talk:
A trio of teenaged girls played an excellent live cover of Paper Planes. The shots were tambourine shakes and the reload/cha-ching was a single xylophone note. Sheer brilliance.
Once I've listened to their album (sans Paper Planes, unfortunately) some more for quality assurance, I'll reveal their name and link to something or another.

Even more music talk:
I was going to splurge on a bunch of iTunes Store downloads this Wednesday in honor of their DRM removal, but I can't find decent confirmation of the exact date. I know the majority of tracks have already made the switch, but I like the idea of an official day that I can be happy about. Wikipedia mentions that the conversion should be done by Q2 2009, which is why I'm considering Wednesday. However, their variable pricing scheme doesn't begin until April 7^th. Are these events meant to coincide?
Will the tracks I want go up or down in price?

I'm leaning heavily towards a Psilodump album. Yes, it's Swedish and electronic.

No one prides themselves on individuality quite like everyone.

I have an unrelated question.
Does anyone know what kind of effect shampoo for color-treated hair has on natural hair?
My mom buys it, so it's what I use whenever I visit home. Is something on my head being preserved in stead of dye? Is it locking hair oils into place? How am I to go about my daily business?