The Unbearable Posts on Facebook

I spend a small chunk of my Internet time on Facebook. It's been a portal for most people to check out what their family, friends, acquaintances and others are up to. Facebook games, small chats and discussions with friends or in groups. I just want to have a nice time in this familiar corner online. Then you see those unbearable posts.

These posts are ignorant, blasé, argumentative, and/or passive-aggressive. These hold true for comments inside otherwise OK posts. I don't want that shit on my news feed. It's bad enough Facebook tweaked the main page to push recently commented posts to the top. Now I have to deal with people clearly lashing out on others in their friend list for what is lacking in their life. Part of me wants to put the aggressors in their place. Instead, I go for the peaceful route most of the time.

Everyone's got their own burdens. And I'm not gonna be one of those people that dumps mine in on somebody else.

I'm done.

RE: Picking Up Painting Again

This past Monday, we had a house washing crew come by the house around 10:30AM. I was working at home. When they started washing the outside walls, my Internet connection stopped working. I went outside and the the service box was definitely wet. I'm still not sure if that was the cause because we had lots of rainy days in the past few weeks. I called our Internet provider.

They asked me to check if the router was working. Then they asked if our phone and TV was working. Turns out the TV and landline phone was also gone. Got a message from our team lead. I told her I lost connection at home. I went to our local Books-A-Million at the coffee shop section. Good thing I have a club membership. I worked the rest of my day at the store.

I stopped by the Jo-Ann Fabric store and got a simple plastic palette knives set. Skip to Friday night, I had some free time. I decided to finish my last canvas.

I continued to use oil based paint. I remembered that depending on the type of paint thinner, it could be used in conjunction with the oil paint and as a cleaning solvent. I didn't use coconut oil this time. Just played around with Clouds needed some work. I should have added the lake first. The orange-hued sky could have used some layering, but I like how my mountains turned out.

I'm done.

Joker vs Joker

I was reading an article on why Tim Burton's Batman changed Hollywood. It's probably one of the better articles I've read on IGN where the comment section was not a haven for fanboy arguments and white knighting. It talks about the Batmania in 1989 and the idea of putting a villain center-stage in movies changed filmmaking. As always, Jack Nicholson's Joker is compared to all previous versions up to the recent one portrayed by Heath Ledger.

In light of Batman's 75th anniversary, Batman's (1989) Joker and The Dark Knight's (2008) Joker are the best versions of the character for the director's vision.

I'm just gonna say that Nicholson's Joker and Ledger's Joker were true to Allan Moore's and Frank Miller's adaptations. Jack Nicholson put his heart and had fun with the character true to the comic. That version lived on in spirit with the Animated series and various incarnations. Heath Ledger put his soul and portrayed a realistic version of Joker that fits the Christopher Nolan version of the Batman universe.

Both versions should be celebrated for what they are and what they did to comics and film adaptations.

I'm done.

Picking Up Painting Again

The last time I did some serious art work was in high school. Prior to that in elementary school, I learned the basics of light and dark shading, blending palettes, darker/lighter colors in background/foreground, and water and oil painting from my father's painter friend. Haven't had much time to dive into it. I make digital edits and comic strips from time to time, but I always wanted to get back into painting.

I bought a few small-frame canvasses, a painting palette, a small supply of oil-based paint tubes, small and large brushes and a tiny easel. That was in 2012 (Or maybe late 2011). It collected dust in the basement until last night.

With no object in mind, I just started mixing a small slab of dark blue and titanium white in coconut oil and applied it all over the canvas with a large brush. It came out with a sky blue shade. Using a small brush, I used orange and enveloped the canvas. Since this is oil painting, it takes a long time for the paint to dry. The orange mixed in with the blue already on the canvas in a dark rusty shade. I didn't know what I was going for, but it looked like the dark shade of fire flames. I tried adding yellow, but the orange was just too strong. Not much I can do. I left it to dry. Not the same as the apples and oranges and trees/buildings we used as subjects, but this will do for now.

A few things I (re)-learned:

• Oil painting is messy - Besides the paint taking longer to dry, cleaning your brushes is the worst.
• Brushes are overrated - I've forgotten how annoying brush bristles are, falling out of the brush and on the canvas.
• I prefer water painting (sort of) - I had this discussion with my sibling about a year ago with me getting back into oil painting. She said she preferred water painting because it dries quickly. The thing about oil painting is that you can mix in the color really well and don't have to worry much about it drying quickly. If you're doing multi-layered paint job, you'd have to wait for a day or two.
• Cleaning up sucks - not much else to say.
• Turpentine/Paint remover creates a sticky substance with Lysol - that was unexpected and made clean up harder.

I'll probably use paint without oil (maybe some water for blending purposes) and easily cleaned/throwaway items for applying the paint.

I'm done.

Define Flaker

Monday, April 28th, 2014


Flaker: Movie night Friday??? :) Snacks included.

Tuesday, April 29th, 2014

Flaker: ... Or Wednesday night!

Wednesday, April 30th, 2014

Comes home and bails on everyone.

Thursday, May 1st, 2014

Comes home to eat. Bails on everyone. Leaves and comes back home in the morning to get ready for work.

Friday, May 2nd, 2014

Comes home and invites friend over. Bails on movie night without explanation whatsoever because they takes everyone for granted.

And that is why we have lowered expectations on people.

I'm done.