I am employable...part 2

I got da job! I got da job!

I am now officially the artist in residency at Berkley High School. I am very excited. I only have to work 4 days a week, for about 5 hours a day, and I get payed pretty well to do it. I dont think its a career or anything, but it should definately be fun. I start on Monday, and I have to go in and get my parking pass and I.D. and aparently I get one of those rings of keys. I dont know why, but this seems amazing to me. I would never thought I would be the guy with the building keys. I'll probably never have need to use them, but I will wear them triumphantly on my belt loop all the same.

Today's interesting link is Zach Braff's official Garden State blog.

The blogs are so entertaining that I feel that my blog efforts are almost pointless. Its as if I was trying to be a cubist painter, and then moved next door to Picasso. Luckily I dont have to compete with him directly, because it's hard to match a guy who can start a conversation with "So I was making out with Natalie Portman in my movie...". I think my "So I was helping this kid learn photoshop..." kind of pales in comparison.

Tim comes home late tomorrow night, so we are going to go eat mass quantities of White Castle, and probably hang around his basement watching some Halloween related movie, like "The Ring" or "Mr. Holland's Opus". Then Sunday night I am going up to MSU to hang with Derrick. We are going to the bar in costume, him as Dr. Evil, me as Number Two. Let me tell you, wearing an eye patch when you can actually use both eyes, not as fun as advertised.

I finished another video game concept character. I dont really feel like explaining it too much, sufice to say it is an assasin/ ninja type enemy.



Pat
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Currently Listen to: "Waiting for my Real Life to Begin" by Colin Hay

The parent of my parent

Today was interesting. My afternoon was spent helping my Grandfather purchase, carry, and set up his brand new computer. First off, he got an eMac. Take that you 95% PC using Majority, eat it! I actually have a lot of respect for my Grandpa, and his willingness to try and figure out these incredibly confusing machines. My Grandpa used to be the head of the art department over at J Walter Thompson, a huge ad agency in Detroit. The guy is a seriously talented artist, and is why a large chunk of my Mom's side of the family is involved in art in one way or another. At one point I think we had atleast three, maybe four Keenan cousins all attending art school at the same time.

First off, the eMac is quite possibly the heaviest computer I have ever carried. Taking it out of the store, the sales people offered to help us to our car, but attempting to be macho I decided to save face and carry it myself. My arms hate me now. I always figured that if I was going to be injured for a family, it would involve my Italian relations and La Cosa Nostra.

The set up was pretty simple, except for the fact that the idiots at Comcast, after setting up the cable modem on my grandfather's older computer (also a mac, eat it yet again) didn't leave a manual, or set up cd's, or spec sheet, or even any account information. I had to fiddle around with Apple's Network detection settings until, probably through sheer dumb luck, managed to get the computer to talk to the modem. After that it was a simple matter of showing Jack (aparently grandparents do have first names, when did this happen?) how to access his email and word processing programs, and he was set. All in all a positive experience. I just hope Apple's new operating system doesn't give him too much trouble, I think it may actually be sophisticated enough to steal his credit cards and hop a flight to Tahiti, if not, Im sure It'll be in the next release.

And in closing, is George W. Bush really throwing up the horns? God love that crazy monkey.


Pat
Currently Listening To: Baker Street by the Foo Fighters

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So it's now 4:30 and I'm not the least bit tired, I should never let myself fall asleep before 1am, it just ends badly. I took a nap tonight, the dinner I had out with the folks hit me and I dozed off from about 9pm to 1am. Now I cant get back to sleep. So concerning celebrities, I've decided I want to meet Zack Braff, and date the lead singer of the Donnas. Not neccasarily in that order. So if anyone knows how to hook that up, let me know.

Ive been missing my CCS friends lately, especially my friends Ralph, Carlos and Pierre. They are all from the Miami, Florida area so we called them the Miami Boys, looking back, we weren't very creative for art school kids. It's just odd, I met them all my second year at CCS, and ended up living with them for almost two years. When you spend most waking hours with a group of people, it becomes disorienting when you dont see them for six months. Especially Pierre, because he and I had pretty similar personalities, tastes in music and liquor, that kind of stuff. He was the one who came up with the "Pat O Rama" nickname that somehow stuck. By the end even some of the teachers were refering to me as patorama. I miss sitting in the CCS dorm, chilling to classic punk and passing around three finger jack and cokes.

I am going to a Halloween party this Tuesday with some CCS friends in Ferndale, but it is definately going to be tame. It is being thrown by an Animation and Special Effects group from Detroit, and is featuring things like a Halo Tournament, and the unveiling of some new 3D software package. Not terribly exciting. But theres a bar, and hopefully the DJ wont completely suck. Maybe after five or six newcastles things will seem encredbly hip.

Im going to try and do something productive for the next few hours, until the parents get up and I can go eat breakfast. I'll try and cut down my ramblings from now on.

Meeting with the Super

So no posts in two weeks and then two in two nights. Isn't that just like me?

I had mentioned that I would update when I heard something about the Berkley job, so I am keeping my word. I got an email today from the teacher who is in charge of the Artist in Residency program, and she wants to set up a meeting with me, her, the Principal, Superintedent, and Assistant Superintendent. So I guess I beat out whoever else was going for the job, take that ....other applicant. So assuming things go well at this next meeting, I may have a full time job again. I know I've said it before, but I think I mean it this time. It would be nice to have a bank account again.

In other news, some damn cool movies are either out or about to be out. And I havent seen a single one. Team America World Police, The Grudge, and I still havent seen Sky Captain and the World o' Blue Screen. The Incredibles will be out soon. Pixar and superheroes? They apparently made this movie specifically for the animation department at CCS.

Derek...yes you. I know you're out there. I am making it mandatory that you come home this Christmas so you, Tim and I can go see the new Wes Anderson film at the paladium and be the only three people in a sold old theater who actually understand he humor. For those of you not yet in the know, the newest Wes Anderson flick stars Bill Murray and is called .... The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Also in the cast are (big shocker) Owen Wilson, Anjelica Huston, Cate Blanchett, Willem Dafoe, and Jeff Goldblum

And yes, you get a new artwork tonight. Another character from a video game I am designing. And when I say designing, I mean occasionally sketching out a few lame character designs and actually finishing one every month or so. This adorable little guy is one of the everyday bad guys that the dude with the gloves (see a few posts back) would have to fight. The idea is that there isnt anything real inside the outfit, pretty much just animated armor. It's magic people, dont make me explain it. Anyway, here it is.



Pat

Pig Payback

The title of today's post refers to the sketch. Some of you have played the Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker before. It is a very enjoyable game, and I for one loved the cartoony style. A while after I had bought the game, Tim decided he wanted a Gamecube, and proceeded to purchase one, along with a copy of Zelda. So I decided to watch him play through the first level. Now in this level, there are all these pigs running around, and one of the puzzles involves you picking them up and throwing in a pen or something like that. While I was watching Tim, he asked if you could throw the pigs off of the cliffs and into the ocean. In the months that I had been playing the game, it never occured to me to do that. But sure enough, you can, the pig just swims back to shore and looks a little pissed off, but no worse for having taken the plunge. So Tim spent the next half hour or so chucking pigs into the drink and watching them paddle their way back.

Now that the backstory is out of the way, you can understand "Pig Payback" Yet another Nintendo related piece.



In other news, I may be getting a job as "artist in residency" at Berkley High School. It would be a totally fun job that pays remarkably well. Lets put it this way, I would be making more at Berkley working 5 hours a day, 4 days a week than at the other studio I talked to working 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. I'll go into details if I actually get the job, I should find out by the end of the week.

Last, and well probably least. Apple likes to make things easy for you. Email, Address Books, Calenders, they all work together very easily. I think I just hate easy. Ive been using web mail forever, going through three or four pages before getting to my inbox, waiting for each mail message to load. I've had this computer now for a good 4 months or so, and I just now got around to setting up my email, address book, and calender through the Mac applications. It is too quick to check my email now, I have no idea what to do with the extra time. Maybe I'll knit a sweater or something.

Pat

Oh. And since this entire thing is pretty much just me emulating LiveJournal, I decided to start including what Im listening to at each post.
Currently Listening to: Modest Mouse, Bukowski

Jump! Jump, Jump!

A new sketch tonight. Back when I posted my self portrait as Mega Man, I promised that I would eventually post my sketch of Tim as Super Mario. So, as promised...



This was, of course, back when Tim still had big side burns and a nice goatee. I miss those days...*sigh*. As I was working on this I noticed something strange. I had depicted Tim as the large Italian, and myself as a being with a metal back. Go figure. And yes, his name is Timoty, not Timothy. I dont want any angry emails about this. Really I just dont want any angry emails.

Looks like I may be getting a new job, again. A studio that I interviewed with about a month ago just now got back to me and offered me a position. I have to email this guy back and see what their offer is. I've liked working freelance, but I think this is something more perminant. It would be nice to have a consistent pay check again.

Halloween is coming up, my favorite time of the year. I want to go out and rent like every classic Halloween movie just to get into the mood. Maybe I'll just go out and buy a bulk load of candy and eat myself into a sugar coma. Such wonderful options. Someone needs to come up with a wonderful plan for that weekend so I dont spend my favorite Holiday sitting inside. Get back to me on this.

Oh and everybody, there is now less than one month until by Birthday. November 4th. For those of you who like to get your shopping done early. There is something sad about turning 22. There isn't any big birthday to look forward to anymore. I mean obviously there is the big 30, 40, and so on, but these are bad birthdays. These are depressing birthdays. There are no more..."Hey I can (insert activity) now!" type birthdays. Oh well.

I guess thats it for now.

Pat