Why we fight

Some people have been curious exactly what it is that I do at work and I'll admit to being pretty tight lipped about it. But lest people continue to propagate the myth that I work at a Clinique counter, or that I actually still work at the video store, I will do my best to explain the work process and my role in it.

This is where I work. The 37th floor of the illustrious GM building, built by George Montgomery in 1853 and surprisingly modern looking. The first ten floors used to be Mr. Montgomery's private zoo but the smell wafting up the elevator shaft made business flee and the zoo was eventually removed in 1914. Most of the animals were sent to fight in WWI and many died at Verdun.

This is my cubicle. You may notice a mirror effect taking place on the screen of my computer. Every week I take a picture of my cubicle at roughly the same angle and then set that as my desktop. So when I take the weeks following picture of my desktop my desktop from the week before is being displayed. In this picture six weeks have passed since I started the process. I'm clearly very busy.

These are, in order from right to left, Rochelle, Ted and Kimia. Ted is my boss, the head of packaging. Kimia and Rochelle give me projects. Not pictured: Jillian, Christie, Joanne, Rosanna, Jessica and Les.

These are my two rubber stamps. About a third of my responsibility lies in processing invoices. We work with a lot of companies who make comps, take pictures, retouch and so on. These companies charge us outlandish sums higher than my yearly pay. I am the last in the line that makes sure they're paid. If it weren't for me, many New York CEO's wouldn't be able to line their swimming pools with gold this year.

These markers are used for the nest third of my job. At one point Ted saw me doodling and called me an "illustrator". This is apparently what one calls a person who doodles. So now instead of drawing crude pictures of B52s dropping bombs on my old grade school JJ Hill, I now draw crude pictures of B52s dropping their payloads on to lipstick tubes and white women.

The last third of my job is photo retouching. When I finally got a computer made in the last twenty years it came pre-loaded with photoshop. At that point Ted decided that I would also start assisting Kimia (both pictured above) in some of her work with Travel Retail (sh*t you buy at airport duty free shops when you're bored between flights). This entails taking digital photo's of products and then making them look prettier than I did in the crappy job I did of taking their picture. It's very complicated. It's also allowed me to train in Photoshop which has resulted in the above image, and many pictures of co-workers I had doctored.
The other key points of my job:
Drinking coffee
Making sarcastic comments
Blendwourthe & Biddle the ebay company run by Ted and myself
Coming up with exciting new ways to make the time here go just a little quicker...
If anyone knows of any video stores that are hiring I can attach my resume to this.

Mama don't take my Kodachrome down by the shoolyard

I bought a digital camera recently. For those of you not in the know, a digital camera is exactly like a film camera except it uses digital instead of film. Also when you want to see your film pictures you have to take them to Duane Reade and have "Jason" develop them and probably look at them before you do. With digital you just plug in a tube between your camera and a computer and the pictures go through that. It's really easy.
I got a little Canon 5 mega whozit ma jiggy camera. It's nice, it's about the size of a deck of cards, has a good sized display on the back so I can see what I'm doing and it's sturdy for dropping. It's ability to handle low light situations leaves something to be desired but that's sort of the curse of photography in general. The image resolution is good, a little grainy or whatever one calls the digital equivalent. All I know is my dick looks funny in my cock shots but the city scapes I took turned out very well.









I've taken enough pictures of myself at this point, the best example being my current Friendster picture as an old timey mayor or pirate as my friend Sarah suggested. I decided to do a series called "Lunch" where I take photos of what I'm eating each day. Here is yesterdays:












Of course this presents a problem since I eat the same four things every week. I don't know, there's a party this weekend where I'll get some good drunk pictures. I still need to develop the rolls I took on New Years... Still have to piece together those three missing hours.

Reflections

Today marked three weeks since I sucked off a cancer stick. Here's what I think...
I think smoking makes you cool and now I have to adjust to being a "normal" person. I put normal in quotation marks because my lack of smoking certainly hasn't cleaned my mouth up or made me stop thinking about violence.
I haven't noticed being able to smell any better than I used to, but I have again noticed how much this city smells like poo poo and pee pee in certain parts. Poo poo and pee pee are standing in for P*ss and Sh*t which are both words prohibited by F****dster.
As some of you may remember I was very hyper even through high school. This has returned much to my chagrin and I now have been exercising daily for two weeks. I run around my apartment and scare Nugget (Dave's cat) and Dave (Nugget's b*tch).
Throughout my appetite has remained consistently abusive.
So that's that. Three weeks and I'm apparently cured. I think I'll celebrate by taking up heroin.

My so called life with Joe Camel

I've made it two weeks now. I have one week left and b all accounts I'll have made it past the hardest parts of quitting smoking. I want to say thank you to all of you who have been their for me offering support. It's harder than it should be. To all the kids out there: don't smoke... unless you want to look cool. If you want to look cool you should smoke, 'cause smoking is cool. God I want a cigarette.

Rejection

Rejection is a hard thing to face. Whether it be from an employer, a friend or a lover, it is always hard. It's the negation of hope and longing. The moment when everything you've tied up into a person or thing is cruelly crushed into fine powder before your once happy heart... or so I've heard. I myself have never faced "rejection" so I'm paraphrasing what a bunch of losers once told me it felt like.
Tonight however I did participate in the "Rejection Show". Jon Friedman hosts a forum where people who work in the arts and have had their projects "rejected", as the name suggests, share with the audience. Why was I there? Certainly not because of anything I did.
Some of you may recall that during the summer I teamed up with Sara Schaefer (now Genoa) to do a little short she wrote. A little short called "The Super" f*cking "Awesome 10 Show" (The word f*cking was added for emphasis and did not appear in the actual title sequence). This short was a gem and Sara and I poured a lot of love and effort into it. We put so much effort and love in to it that I thought the hearts of a million children might implode, it didn't happen, but I thought it might. After nearly two months of using every bit of free time I had available to create this masterpiece it was rejected by the Channel102 committee. Bullsh*t but there you have it. Now clearly Sara was the one rejected, because my work is indisputably brilliant, but I couldn't help but feel... letdown? I don't know, it felt like the time I really wanted a Prada wallet for my 16th birthday and instead I got cuff links that once belonged to Hitler. I guess it's what the losers said rejection feels like. From the point it was shot down to this evening it had rarely seen the light of day. It was only whispered about at comedy shows and rest stop glory holes. Then Jon put it up there for the sold out audience and they liked it... they really really liked it. So to all of you that didn't come out to see it, and I'm mostly pointing my finger (middle) towards Minnesota, eat it. I may not know the sting of rejection, but I sure as sh*t know what it feels like to have such a lousy group of friends.

p.s.
In all seriousness it was nice to get it screened. I actually was happy about that. I did not receive Hitler's cuff links for my 16th birthday. I got a tooth my Uncle Walter swore was Hitler's but was more likely Uncle Walter's.

Bare naked ladies

You remember that song... by the Bare naked ladies... One week? Well that's how long it's been since I quit smoking. I haven't cheated, snuck a smoke and lied about it. Nope, I've done a full week sans cigarettes. What have I learned? Don't smoke, quitting later sucks.
There's the Monday incident. Tuesday I was so afraid to put the patch on that I went cold turkey. I was making comp boxes and jumped the line with my exacto into and through much of my thumb. Wednesday was okay except I kept having urges to hurt people I didn't know. On the elevator at work all the lawyers got on at 25 and I contemplated smacking this guys head into the door. It's funny that I think these things when having a craving. Have I repressed my animal nature through smoking? I went out with Charlie, Cesa and Al last night and didn't smoke even after drinking mas cervesa's. Things would appear to be on the up and up. Here's to some smooth *ss sailing y'all.