The Fringe Benefits Of Being A Lead

So, my job decided to promote me kind of into the lead position they had passed me over for earlier that I had mentioned in my first post about going back to school. My supervisor being the kind of guy that he is, gave me a sink or swim on the computer aspect of the job; ordering Master Production Records, ordering temporary employees, opening and closing the shop floor order, and taking care of the production report. It's a good thing I'm a fast learner and took plenty of notes and had support from the third shift supervisor who would stay over late (he does anyway to talk to this one girl on the line) and from the second shift supervisor who would come in early to help me out with any questions I might have had. I must say though that being a supervisor, or lead as it were, in my department is very boring. There is about a total of an hours worth of work that needs to be split up throughout the day. Include with that a half hour lunch and I have six and a half hours of fuck off time I need to kill. Now I understand why the supervisor is hardly ever in the room and he's always somewhere else talking to other supervisors or whomever. I kind of tried to do the same thing, but because of my own personal work ethic I find it hard to go into another department and bullshit with others distracting them from thier own job. Maybe my supervisor talks to others who have the same amount of fuck off time as he does and it doesn't interfere with job productivity. But those are the people that he knows. The people that I know work on the line and don't have that luxury. So my first week went well, a few curveballs were thrown my way that I feel I handled fairly. I have one more week to go before my supervisor is back from vacation. Ah, the fringe benefits of being a lead.

Not All Comicbook Movies Require Spandex

So how many of you are enjoying the last decade of comicbook movies? Comicbooks have come to the big screen before that, sure, but few and far between and mainly DC's Superman and Batman. It really started to snowball with Spider-man and X-Men. Then with Ironman and Batman (again). Now it seems each year they throw two or three comicbook movies at us Thor, Captain America, and Green Lantern hit us last year, and Avengers and the third Batman movie are slated to hit us this year. But I don't want to talk about those kind of comicbook movies. I want to talk about the comicbook movies you may not have known were comicbooks. The first successful of these non-traditional superhero comicbook movies in the last few years would have to have been the movie 300. 300 Spartans versus the entire Persian army. I love that movie. Another was the vampire movie 30 Days of Night, where the entire town of Barrow Alaska is overrun by the bloodsuckers. Another successful comicbook movie was Sin City, depicting a few of those stories in one movie. Did you know that the movie Red featuring Bruce Willis was based on a comic? The comic is awesome by the way, but completely different from the movie, you gotta keep them seperated (Offspring reference). Another Bruce Willis staring comicbook movie was The Surrogates, I still need to get that one on dvd. Not to say any or all comicbook movies are good, to each their own. I remember reading The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen and then couldn't believe the crap they made into a motion picture. If any of what I've written inspires you to read the comicbook version, do yourselves a favor and read The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, they're collected into volumes one and two and are brilliant. So hopefully I've showed you that not all comicbook movies require spandex.

Might As Well Be On Mars

I've always been fascinated by Mars and astronomy in general. I particularly enjoy reading stories about outer space, particularly those that were written around the turn of the twentieth century. Edgar Allen Poe had written a short story about taking a hot air balloon to the moon. A favorite author of mine E. E. "Doc" Smith wrote a space opera back in the 30's and 40's collected currently as Chronicles of the Lensmen, which last I heard they may be making into a film. Yesterday I went to see John Carter with my daughter and brother. I find it fascinating that these stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs were written so long ago when we new absolutely nothing about Mars. I have yet to read them meself, but now after seeing the movie, it may inspire me to sit down and enjoy them. Being a novice writer myself I have my own Mars story plotted out but have yet to take the time to finish writing it. I like other movies based on Mars as well. My first memory is of the movie Total Recall. There have been a few others since, but none really captured the same feeling of Mars like that one. Until John Carter came out. It takes a different approach to the story. Instead of colonizing Mars like in Total Recall or in space trips to Mars like in the other few that come to mind. John Carter goes with the theme that a civilization is already on Mars, having evolved similar to our own. Their are humans on Mars but also four-armed green men. You could generalize the genre as almost a western on Mars, but their are flying ships in it as well. What I found truly fascinating about the movie was the fact that John Carter has almost super-human powers, because of the difference in gravity between Earth and Mars John Carter is stronger and more agile and able to leap for almost a quarter mile or so. It was entertaining seeing  the character adjust to this new-found gravity as every step he took made him fly dozens of yards through the air. I see a franchise coming from this John Carter movie and expect another movie to hit theaters in a few years as Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote several stories featuring the characters.

I'll leave you with a favorite song by Alice Cooper "Might as well be on Mars http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCmBb1JSr4c

Body Canvas, Art or Graffiti?

My daughter got half her head shaved today. No, I don't mind it at all. I think it looks awesome. I encourage her to express herself. Although the things she chooses to express herself with are not what  I would do. She has her ears gauged, and she dyes her hair every once in awhile. I find it different from how I expressed myself when I was her age. I was writing a drawing to get out the feelings inside, although some things shouldn't have been let out. If I were to do now what I did back then I would've been suspended and/or sent to seek counseling. The only thing that has me concerned about my daughters expressionism is that she wants to get a tattoo, and that is such a permanent thing. I know you can get tattoos removed but that costs even more money. I only just got my first tattoo last year, and yeah I'd like to get more, but not impulsively. These kinds of things need to take much more careful consideration. A young man might want to get a tattoo of skulls and such. But fast forward ten years, twenty years, do you still feel the same as you did? Is it something that you're still going to be proud of? My daughter has all of these wild ideas for tattoos, but it makes me take a step back and look at the big picture. Is this something that is going to have relevance later on in life? Yes, the body can be a canvas, but the picture will always be the same. Is this a perceived timeless piece of artwork, or a spur of the moment act of graffiti? Although I must add that some people get "safe" tattoos; the butterfly, or the frog, or the name of a loved one that has passed. A tattoo with significance. What about you? What kind of tattoo would you get? Or are tattoos not your thing and you are happy with how you look?

Prostituting Myself, Metaphorically Speaking

You may remember the first day of class; Azor asked all of us to introduce ourselves. How annoying is that? Talking about yourself to a dozen or so complete strangers. Needless to say I was very nervous about it. I always was, I have stagefright, but am getting over it by forcing myself to do things that put me in the spotlight. For instance, I've sang karaoke three times, granted it took me a few drinks of courage but I did it, and I enjoyed it. But I'm getting off topic. But it is also relevant. You may remember me saying the thing about myself was that I self published two books Liquid Dreams: April 2051 http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss/180-4638960-9558406?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Liquid+Dreams%3A+April+2051 and Jackie Reaper http://www.amazon.com/Jackie-Reaper-Donald-Jensen/dp/1607498731/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1330188374&sr=8-1 . Self Publishing is actually quite easy. At first the few Print-On-Demand publishers I checked out wanted several hundred dollars up front. Which of course I didn't have, and I doubt most of us do. But then I found Publish America http://www.publishamerica.com/ , they wanted no money up front, they make their money on the back end, from your sales. What does that mean? It means they will publish your book; you buy copies and try to sell them. My first book I only sold about 40-45 copies, my second book I've only sold maybe 10 or so because I'm not allowed to sell at work anymore since it's not a not-for-profit. This is actually discouraging to an extant. I've got a third book ready to go, but haven't bothered to publish it yet. Why? Because it's hard to sell them. Like I said earlier, self publishing is easy; it's the selling that's hard. You can of course sell to friends and family, and that's about 10 books or so (my second book) but going up to strangers and asking them to spend $15 on one of your books is another matter all together. Maybe I need a few drinks of courage, I don't know. Having friends and family help you is a great way of selling, before my mom passed, she helped me sell a lot, plus the copies I sold at work (my first book). But what you may fail to realize is that people aren't buying your book, they are buying you. So if you can't sell yourself, be a salesman (or woman), you aren't going to sell that many copies. But if you do have the touch that allows you to sell ice cubes to Eskimos, as a friend once said to me, then you're on your way to a decent writing and publishing career. But as for me, I'm not very good at prostituting myself, metaphorically speaking.

If you think you may be interested in buying one of my books for $15, I keep a few in my car. Talk to me before or after class.

The musical chairs

If you would have seen me 10 years ago with my long hair and my heavy metal t-shirts, you could interpret that I was a metal head, and in part you would be correct. I do like metal. But I also like 80's hair, industrial, easy listening, some rap, a handful of country, and some classical when the mood strikes me. Alphabetically, American Head Charge http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQjvVjU1fFI is right next Tori Amos http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uho2NQw1GY , Earshot  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AA5cYjpmRS8&ob=av2e is right next to Enya http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jl8iYAo90pE&ob=av2n , Marilyn Manson http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ybaiCgOFUQ is next to Sarah Mclachlin http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucdnm8iU-5c is next to Meatloaf http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fAPEUWowEc , you get the idea. But my motivation for writing all of this is to open your own mind to new music. Take the radio for example, I used to listen to 106.5 WHBZ for the rock and metal, but then my kids tuned me into 104.5 WXER where I found Beyonce's "Halo"  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dC06CMBQLM0 and Katy Perry's "E.T." "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bh63nfmb3p0 amongst others. My brother listens to country and while driving around with him I found Jamey Johnson "High Cost Of Living" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiMdb2MnYr8 . The only rap I own is Nelly http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hc6vZVylX8 , but I'm slowly expanding that by listening to 103.7 KISS but some of that dance music is sooo annoying. I love discovering new music, it was strange how I found Neon Hitch   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qH0GBJEzbgw , I was watching The Lonely Island http://www.thelonelyisland.com/video/the-shooting-aka-Dear-sister and was intrigued by the whole "Mmm whatcha say" so I did a search on youtube for it, and came up with Jason Derulo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBI3lc18k8Q but found in the comments that he sampled it from someone. Someone inaccurately said it was Neon Hitch when in fact it was Imogen Heap http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4OLQB7ON9w . Another band I accidentally found was Psychostick http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMrXMjxB6wk while looking for lyrics for a Marilyn Manson song. I mean how can you not listen at least once to a song called "This Is Not A Song, It's A Sandwich." Besides the above links I will share with you a few select songs from a few of my fave bands, Type O Negative http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD5No_JRrZw&ob=av2n , Mushroomhead http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nghUCS6zqIE and Devin Townsend whose musical tastes are as diverse as my own with his heavy metal band Strapping Young Lad http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aOy7bEkbCU , his rock/pop cd's http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Z_UJ0_biJw , and his easy listening stuff http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRVlVhX_Ud8 . That is enough of my musical chairs.

Back to school sale

I can't believe I'm doing this. If you would've told me a year ago that I'd be going back to school this spring, I would've told you flat out that it would never happen. I wasn't happy with my life but I was content. But two of my close friends were going back to school and they kept saying that I should go. At least take one class and see if you like it. Then two of the last women I dated were also going back to school. And then a third friend - from the ever present facebook - said they wanted to go back to school as well. And I'm like wtf! Add into the mix that I got passed up for a promotion at work, and I'm like wtf again! So I'm going back to school, because somehow I am no longer content with my life and the way it was going. Even if I stay at the same job I will at least be able to say I graduated, although given my full time working status could take me about five or six years for a two-year associates degree. At which point I'll probably be then going for my bachelors, spending possibly another five or six years. But now I get "it". What my friends were trying to tell me, what the last two girlfriends had going on, and the third friend from facebook was excited about. Getting an education. Nothing is wrong with getting an education, and I'll add myself to the list of people telling others to go back to school. Telling them to just try it. Take one class and see if you like it. Well, for me, that one class turned into two, and is slowly turning into a degree. And that my friends is my back to school sale.