We have reached the second month of spring and one of my faves. Totally biased pick, because it is my birthday month! Yes, soon I will be turning the dangerous age of 27 (if I was famous, which I'm not, phew). I can't believe the luck that this monthly spread fell on April for me, it's got a cake and a cat, and what else does one need? Anyway, here's to a month of better things, I hope.
Hey everyone. Doing something new starting this month. I'll be slowly phasing out my media blog on the account of I realized it's not really the way I want to do media analysis and reviews. I'd rather have dedicated pages on my site for really in-depth stuff in the future and I don't really need a blog for the short stuff cuz I can just drop it here and on the media log. As such, there's gonna be the usual rundown of my monthly goals, accomplished and not, and the best stuff I watched/read/played/listened to during the month. Without further ado...
Goals
1. Nanoreno project
Well, it was going very well until my tablet pen decided to die and the Parblo shop decided to make ordering a replacement borderline impossible. I'm still trying to get that damn pen.
2. Job search continued
Worked for 5 days at the end of the farm planting kiwi fruit. Also went to the job fair and gave my CV to three job-search groups. They always have a laugh about the fact that I'm an illustrator in the Lot-et-Garonne region. That's like saying you came to Ohio to pursue your dream of becoming a movie star. Maybe it's possible?
3. Apply for titre de voyage
Actually totally forgot to do this... need to get on that.
4. Portfolio website
Done. Not happy with it but it's done.
5. A-Z blogging prep
Sorta.
6. Prepare for driving test
Put that away for now as I've had some work to do. But I did learn to drive a tractor!
Best Of: March
Movies
Terrible month for movies, I barely watched anything. But I did enjoy something very late into the month and that was One False Move. Bill Paxton is always a pleasure, don't think there's ever been a performance of his I wasn't totally riveted by. But everyone else didn't lag far behind, I was especially taken with Cynda Williams who plays a girl who both permits and commits horrific acts but you can't help but understand, she's dealt a shit hand like no other. It's a crime thriller with a horror-movie opening scene and before you know it it's become an exploration of some really dark shit at the interpersonal, class, and race level between two characters. Billy Bob Thornton's hairstyle is intriguing and evil at the same time.
TV Shows
Another re-watch but damn if it isn't one of the best TV shows to ever exist. You may say... is vulgarity really so funny? First of all, yes. But that's not what this is about. It's another excellent work on the failure of the justice system that starts all the way back in school. I love this show both from Peter's relentless need to find the truth, even when it ends in him in flailing between moderate but sudden fame and alienating nearly everyone he knows and Dylan's jumping from wanting to be better and giving up at every turn, because of himself but also because of how the world treats him. This shit is so serious. I wasn't Dylan-level of burnout in school but I 100% had a sign high above my head placed there by teachers and students alike: anger issues, stupid, a level below everyone else.
Games
Everything comes to your life at the right time. Probably. My brother has been shilling GTA anything at me for a while now and as a kid I liked San Andreas and the PSP games well enough but something always held me back from playing V. We literally had it on our old 360, I even remember trying the North Yankton prologue and just not caring... it seemed so low-brow to 14 year old me, who somehow had such high standards? I'm joking, I thought Assassin's Creed was like deep as fuck and I still love the pre-Origins games but I will absolutely not stay on that hill that it has superior 'substance' to GTA or something. I was a real snob as a pre-teen. Whatever, it was a dumb boy game. Probably good that I only played it now because with a whole lotta more crime-movie trivia under my belt, this was a fucking ride! I love shitty scheming dudes, they are the best. Yeah, this game is still totally stuck on my mind.
Books
Started the Westing Game but have not gotten far. It's not been a great book month for me, I barely read anything. Not even some recent leftie nonfiction. Things are dire. Had a chat with Alice and she gave me some good advice that when you're in a slump, go with a highly rated classic cuz it's probably gonna be good. Gotta agree, and if it's not you can lord it over other people that you read it anyway and everyone's opinions are wrong.
Music
Listened to a lot of indie bullshit from the GTAV radio. However, from albums, I really loved Helmet's Aftertaste and Number One Gun's Promises for the Imperfect. Not similar at all but both pretty excellent albums. Here's two great tracks:
Animation
Finished my season 2 re-watch of Venture Bros. I remember getting super into the characters and story much later, maybe sometime in Season 4 but it's taken me much faster this time. Weird what time does to the brain! I shouldn't be surprised but I didn't know Chris Prynoski had a hand in this too. Makes sense, he makes no mistakes. Should probably list some of my fave episodes of the season: Assassinanny 911, Fallen Arches, Victor. Echo. November., and I Know Why the Caged Bird Kills.
So late. Again! And on many fronts. As I write this I'm already really late to the start of the A-Z blogging event but you bet your ass I'll be playing catch up even if it kills me. Emotionally, of course. I had a hell of a week. Some work finally slid my way, nothing permanent sadly. But work is work. And more importantly... tractor! Trying to keep these little icons on theme and how hilarious is this one? I don't know what a John Deere is though because I'm a fake country girl.
Start!
Got an annoying letter last week saying that the government wants a copy of my birth certificate. That I mailed them near to a year ago. Fantastic. So I did that on Monday. Very surprised to get my own letter back on Tuesday. Turns out my dumb ass as always had a moment of spatial dyslexia along with my regular dyslexia and mixed up the sender and recipient address placements. This is so dumb! I always think, man, I should really just double-check in case and do I ever? Obviously not. Good to know that if I ever want to send something to myself from the post-office a 100 meters from my house that it will likely be next day delivery. Anyway, had to send it again on Tuesday, a perfect 3 euro wasted.
My cat being dumb.
On Wednesday I took the 9 AM train to a nearby town for the job fair. It was mostly full of employment agencies that get you some part-time/seasonal work. I think the job market in my department could very well be fucked. It wasn't the usual assembly on middle-aged folk and immigrants (like me) who are fumbling through the bureaucratic job searching nightmare that is French work options. There were also a bunch of people my age or younger too. Things are fucked.
I also didn't expect there to be that many booths so my dumb ass only printed 3 CVs. I mostly printed them for just in case, like if they wanted to read them over but every booth's representative actually took my CV and kept it. So 90s, I love it. Every job I've ever gotten with a CV before has been online so this was pretty fun, I guess. It will be fun if anyone calls me back.
I had so long before the train that I had a whole two hours to just wander. Went to see one of my fave buildings first. It's very retro-futuristic and I love buildings like it. Bring this goofy architecture back!
She's perfect.
I also went by the cultural exchange bell this town shares with a Chinese town. I've not heard it actually ring which is a shame, because apparently it's supposed to do that when the horoscope signs change. The overall translation of all the info boards into English was good with some minor mistakes, repetitions, and one hilarious instance of direct translation.
Is your zodiac sign The Beef?
A nice way to live.
I'm the wild orchid. You?
Some good news on that front actually. Half-good anyway. We are going back to work for the kiwi farmer-friend for a few days. When I say I work on a kiwi farm I mean that very literally, I'm not talking about the harassment website. Anyway, he's looking to plant some new saplings/trees as his last batch died due to some calcium-rich water. We got there just before 8 AM, work consisted of this: dig up some shallow holes about 50cm in diameter, plant the kiwi plant, move on. Wanna know how many there were to plant? 1000 female and 100 male trees. I didn't know that apparently it's got to do with the type of flowers the kiwi tree has. Woke trees with their pronouns, ugh! Am joking.
Struggling to get that Lily Chou-Chou shot on a budget.
It rained and it was gross.
There was a highlight to my day though. The mother of all highlights! We were allowed to drive a tractor up and down the rows, on the account of we're not gonna carry all those plants by hand. Anyway, I was kinda stressed to try at first but I did drive it just up and down the row a few times and then did some turns as well...guys, tractors are fun. I kinda get what all the hillbillies are on about now.
Get in loser, we're going farming.
They call me a killer, a monster, a terrorist... I'm all of these things.
View from hill not too far out of town.
I feel powerful!!
Anyway, on Friday my brother almost took out an entire barn wall backing the tractor out of a real narrow spot. He moved the bottom brick's beneath the wooden wall... significantly. We thought we were truly fucked and we still couldn't get the tractor out. Anyway, the boss sent a farmhand who said it wasn't a big deal and that we'd just help fix it later. Phew... Anyway, here's a POV video: we are slowly going to run my brother over with a tractor for his crimes.
But yeah my brother will never live this down and anytime he brings anything up it will be followed by 'and then you wrecked the barn wall, right?'. He was pretty traumatized by the events sadly and refused to drive the tractor all day. Here's just me tractoring on his behalf.
On Saturday it was just me and my brother as my mum had to take my sister to some open door events at local high schools. She's starting high school next year likely, unless they will hold her a year back. I do have some fond memories of that time for myself but I'd hate to go back so I don't totally envy her.
Sure was sore by Sunday but it still felt better than any service job I've ever done. Maybe a little better than teaching. Mostly on the account of the fact that the boss just let us work in the field and wasn't hovering.
And I live by that.
But yeah, digging all day by hand with a shovel and constantly squatting down to plant shit is exhausting. No surprise that farm work is hard work but does make me think. Every kiwi I never finished... yeah, if you've ever went and bought kiwis and you let them rot away... think about me toiling the fields, man. I won't be mad, just disappointed. Finish your kiwis!
End of week 13!
This Week I'm Excited For...
Excited to get paid, baby. We're scheduled to work next week too so it will be pretty neat to make a little cash. Most of it will go to house renovations. We got holes in the roof, man. And the windows are shit, letting all the warmth out in the winter and letting all the heat in in the summer. But I might put about 100 away for the Huion I'm trying to buy.
Song Of The Week...
I will stop talking about GTAV one day, I swear. But there's no denying that this made-for-the-game song has been stuck in my head. I try not to include songs from my 365 playlist on the SOTW playlist but when a song is a song of the week, it's a song of the week, man!
...Well, I sort of do. Would I lie to you for some two-bit joke? Only sometimes. Could now be that time? Who knows! To be fair, time is truly the only medicine that ever works when it comes to bettering old wounds. Even then it barely kicks in, half the time does nothing, and when it does, it's side-effects are only marginally better than what you're running from. Ah, the beauty of life and how I love it!
Now that some time's come and gone I've got a bit of a clearer picture of what to do next. Maybe we're not in 'as clear as pure water' clarity but we're definitely out of 'the swamps with radioactive waste' clarity.
Week 12.
Despite the fact that my period has been killing me on Monday, I had an otherwise good lazy day. I usually spend them lying totally still on my back for several hours. I was well enough on this day to do stuff on my PC and hence I decided to finish the story of GTA V. I wrote a short review on the media blog but both finishing this game and always thinking of I Come With The Rain has really motivated me to start writing actually readable... maybe not reviews... but analysis of the shit I watch and play and read. For the longest time the problem for me was that I didn't like the layouts I made for my media review pages. Well, easy solution to that was to break it down to it's utmost basics.
Layout sample. Keepin' it bare bones.
So, hopefully soon, I'll actually put some of that shit on my site. I thought I would be using the media blog more to be honest but the blog format doesn't really work for me when it comes to film, games, etc. Just feels weird, so I may get rid of it soon and move all my brief media thoughts to this blog. Why not?
I also had a meeting with my social worker. Yet another awkward moment... she asked whether anyone else in my family spoke French 'well' and I went on a small tale about how much my sister's struggling in school and that my brother can't go to the government-assigned courses since they have been cut (thanks, Macron...). Anyway, she asked because she wanted to know if someone at home could help us with documents and not for me to regale all our linguistic problems. Awkward! I really need to keep my mouth shut more often than not.
Tuesday through Friday were pretty boring. I did get a crumb of good news, hence my new-found and likely set-to-expire-soon 'I love things now' attitude. The publisher that was 'enthusiastically' asking about my portfolio apparently did like my work but currently don't have any upcoming projects. Allegedly they are looking to put me on some project in the future. Now, this could all be polite talk for we actually hated your portfolio and instead of openly rejecting you we will keep you on-hold for the rest of your days. That is probably;y the case but I'll fight every pessimist cell in my body and take things at face-value for once.
I also started to take screenshots of a bunch of web design books that are available on the Internet Archive. What with much talk about how much of the internet is lost daily, I find these kind of collections of web history to be so important to keep record of. Plus someone in my guestbook has recently been interested in where I find inspiration for my web projects. And I usually find that in these design books. Hopefully I can put together a whole page to access these screenshots sometime soon.
Some of my fave books.
Sunday was a huge flea market/brocante but sadly I had almost no money. The overpriced CD guy was there and he had some real bangers: Helmet, Foo Fighters, Deftones. But he wanted 20 euros for three CDs which were in... merely acceptable condition. So I decided to just pick up the Deftones CD because it was a pretty unique Maxi EP of Back To School (Mini Maggit). Well worth it for 5 euros though I really wanted the Helmet CD too. Fuck it, next time!
That was most of the week: a resignation to the way of things as they go. Not too happy, no longer raging at things that are annoying. I won't call them wins, but I'll take them where I can get them.
The end.
This Week I'm Excited For...
Again, the title of this segment is a lie. I have a job fair next Wednesday that I am not excited for, that I dread, but I wanna do. Don't know what the hell it will look like but I'll go look at it. Oh man, will I look at it...
Song Of The Week...
I don't ever really not-listen to Jason Molina but I have periods where I only listen to Jason Molina and periods where I listen to Jason Molina plus others. This was a Jason Molina-only kind of time and I was particularly struck by a song that I did not pay too much mind to before. I'm no stranger to how beautiful his love songs are but I think something about 'Goodnight Lover' is like tending to a broken bone. Like loving through a great betrayal and pain that feels like it will never really be cured. "We were free under those conditions of pain that would not leave". Then: ''and I can tell by that look you were thinking the same thing too: if this can't last just what can last". In the end: "Then it's lights out after this kiss, then time can't torment us". Goodnight lover, where ever you are.
Fuck me. Man, fuck me! There's no destiny, no karma, no fate, no kismet, no divine will, no 'it's gonna come to you threefold (and your dick will fall off in three days), but there sure is pushing your fucking luck! And I've gone and pushed it. Months of wallowing and self-critique and gigabytes upon gigabytes of unfinished works later, when I finally decide to actually illustrate some shit that will make it into some form of final product that will in some sense be published, everything goes tits up. Yes, this is about the drawing tablet pen and all associated misfortunes. More on that... never! I don't wanna talk about it (I'm gonna incessantly talk about it).
Week 11.
Monday was going swimmingly. I went to a meeting with the counselor from the unemployment office and she set me up to go to an event at the end of the month where I can talk to a bunch of employers and throw my CV around. I need that shit bad. I drew a sketch of one character's full sprite and it looked so great. I was actually happy with something for once.
It could have been finished...
In the evening my and my brother's friend streamed some Marathon to us. It looks good and all but I never got into extraction shooters. I think extracting or looting is the most boring part of most modern shooters, it's even worse than battle royales in my opinion but to each their own.
Tuesday is when disaster struck. My brother was out having his civic course and I was drawing when the pen started to randomly freak out until it stopped working all together. I took it apart, tried to fix what I could but I'd need some really small tools to actually have a go at the innards and a fucking manual preferably. Well, there isn't one.
What I fucking despise about new tech more than anything is the lack of documentation and instruction. I remember not even ten years ago when I'd got my most recent phone, sure it didn't have a total blueprint for the thing, but it explained easy battery replacement, how and where to pop-off the cover to fix the screen etc. Now it's all: having a problem? Take it to the official repair shop! Man, fuck you...
I actually really loved the Parblo stuff but their customer support answers every 1000 years, their shop just doesn't let you buy anything from there directly. There are no FAQs about what to do when a pen is non-responsive and there are no fucking manuals. I was going to buy my own tablet from them in the future too but I probably won't now.
I dug out my 2011 Wacom Bamboo just to see if there is any way I could use it but sadly that was a no-go. I mean it was kind of a miracle it worked at all, the thing is 15 years old. It has no pressure sensitivity somehow and the pen-to-tablet connection is a little wack. I assumed it was possible driver issues but guess what? Wacom has made drivers for old tablets unavailable! I'm going to lose it.
Don't ask what the red spots are... I don't know.
I tried some third-party drivers but they sadly did not work. I was gonna throw something into the Porkbun mascot contest too. So long to those plans!
Wednesday through Friday was pretty uneventful, I mostly spent that time writing the story of my visual novel beyond the first chapter but scrapped most of it. Wasn't going where I wanted it. The evenings were salvaged by GTA V storymode fortunately. That game has been a comfort to me lately... despite all the carnage, murder, and betrayal. I don't really know what it is but it felt quite peaceful to RP as some depressed middle-aged guys (and Franklin).
On Saturday me and Mo finally finished ODST. It was his favourite because it was the most tactical. I actually like the Ring locations so I prefer the mainline games but I do love the dumb little ODST guys. Not as dumb as the marines. Here's pics of my cats by the way:
Private helicopter just for him.
Same bullshit on Sunday. I've been drawing traditionally ever since the tablet died and it has put me into my second-layer of depression. Neglect the classics and this is what happens, kids. I just feel so inept... I didn't even realize that I've gotten worse at drawing with a pencil, but I have. This has only made my mood worse. I guess it's better I found this out now than later... Everyone (including myself) told me to never forget the basics and here I go forgetting them.
The end.
This Week I'm Excited For...
Hard to be excited for anything. Should I hope that I impossibly fix my tablet pen? That a tablet just appears on my doorstep, accidentally sent to the wrong address? That I get magic money from a magic sugarmommy/daddy that are deeply invested in my art career and are also emotionally attentive and patient, funny, good-looking and- er, where was I? Honestly, I just need to replace this stupid 15 dollar pen as soon as possible but that depends on if the Parblo Aliexpress shop even deigns me worthy of buying it, it's not in their listings and their damn customer support told me I had to ask in DMs and maybe, maybe, they would sell me one. In the very, very far future I would love to buy a Huion Kamvas Pro 16 V2 but that bitch is 390 euros. Argh...
Song Of The Week...
Listening to the radio stations in GTA V is like being transported to age 13. Or 14. However old I was when I first heard the sweet, sweet screeches of my first FIDLAR song. Which was probably Max Can't Surf. I know it's shameful but I do have to admit that my fave station is definitely Vinewood Boulevard Radio, followed closely by Channel X and Non Stop Pop (I think it's very funny to make Trevor drive to I Want It That Way or Pure Shores). So, Soft Pack, who I first heard of via BIRP and their song C'mon, have not really stuck around for me. Shame! Answer To Yourself is such pure, beautiful 2000s indie kid bullshit that it reaches deep into some part of my mind that's honestly kind of proud of myself for expanding my tastes so young. And I just really need a pick-me-up.
