I have graduated college since my last entry. So now I work. I guess I was expecting more from the working world. I work at a Proposal Graphics Company where I transform sketches that Engineers draw on scraps of paper into colorized boxes with arrows. Sometimes, I get to use gradients, and if I am lucky, a curve. Once I used curved lines to connect two blue boxes and got yelled at because apparently the Gov't hates curves. I mean I can understand how confusing a curve can be, its all "Look at me with no angles I am just a bunch of points without a definite direction." It can be a scary thing.

In other news I am about to move to Frederick, I have been there once, and it was to pick out the apartment I was to live in. It seems like a nice place, it has a Best Buy, so I will survive. Also, the Nintendo DS finally came out with a game I can constantly play, METEOS!! WOO!! Its purdy, though sometimes annoyingly easy to beat through accidental block combinations. I must admit though that the DS has yet to WOW me with much, i mean it has been a mildly amusing ride with Feel The Magic and Meteos but otherwise I am unimpressed. Sigh, no one shall read this and understand because all of my friends dont play videogames. I beat Psychonauts, that is one of the best games I have ever played, hilarious and addicting. I will play it again once I finish moving to Frederick and dont kill myself with work. Oh and it takes me and hour and a half to drive to work ON A GOOD TRAFFIC DAY. Usually its like 2 to 2.5hrs of driving ONE WAY! Once it took me FOUR HOURS to get home FOUR FUCKING HOURS OF MY LIFE GONE! stupid giant underground pot holes and their needs to be filled with stuff. Finally, yesterday I was treated to Mc Chris, he is the most adorable white rapper in all the land. I had not really heard any of his music previous to attending the show but did recall his hilarious character on Aqua Teen Hunger Force. It was well worth my friend Stas picking me up, taking me to the show, paying for parking and my ticket and then dropping me off at home.

I guess I will sleep now... I dont know why I cant, maybe its all this pent up Graphic Designing in me, I have had the oddest desire to learn something new, like how to draw in Photoshop, I shall put my Wacom tablet to use this week, WOO!

I have to design a Font for one of my Graphic Design classes. Now, understand that there are literally tens of thousands of fonts already in existence and that the desire here to do something original yet functional. Yeah... I cant really bring myself to really care about fonts, or typography because its the most specific and mundane form of graphic design. We had to write a ten page paper on a Typographer... TEN PAGES!! People who design fonts are not the most exciting people to read about. In fact I am going to go on a limb here and say that its the most boring topic known to man. But after researching my typographer for a month I got to actually talk to him via email. It was pretty cool cause it made me think, oh yeah... this person exists.

On another topic, my Typography teacher is a ruddy cunt. For some reason, beyond my understanding, she has chosen me to be her center of attention which basically equals her being a giant pain in the ass. She is trying to be my mother, guilting me with phrases like, "Nic, I expected more from you." or "Nic, you are smarter than this." Its never a direct statement with her always a vague motherly guilt trip which is lovely considering that she is my fucking teacher! And OMG! what teacher says "You are smarter than this."? How would she fucking know? Yeah, its been like this since the first time i met her. Sigh. Maybe she will realize that she has children of her own to guilt trip and emotionally scar, thank god i had my own childhood to prepare me for this.

DONE.

I am damn broke. Its annoying to have no money but that is about it. I guess if my current residence depended on rent i would be screwed, but as it stands I am good.

Grades come out tomorrow. This is a stressful situation for me. I do not know what is happening with my credits, whether i have sufficient amount or sufficient requirements to graduate on time. Honestly I would love to stay in school until the end of bloody fucking time but alas I am destined to be consumed by the job market sooner or later and feel as if a head start will get me on my feet sooner then later. Of course there is also the question of where my existence shall settle after hurdling myself into the real world. I dont know, its all up in the air and in my head is a swirl of choices/desires/fears/questions. Fuck it.

I'magonna read some.

happynewyear

All of the money I had is now gone. It was fun while it lasted.

I have been trying to occupy myself by gettin up early and sitting in front of my computer. I have nothing to do. Grover got an Xbox so we have been playing that, halo is a fun thing. I guess I will just make up projects and force myself to finish them. I cant think of any other way to keep myself occupied, that is depressing. I will make a poster for a fake movie and it will be fun fun fun.

I was thinking about a lot of stuff and how much I would truly enjoy being a Graphic Designer until the end of my days. I dont think i would really enjoy that. I mean honestly I always saw myself making movies or writing movies or just creating things for the sake of creating them. But over years and years of schooling the idea of making things just to make them has been learned out of me so i got rid of all the idealized ideas and sort of settled for something i was good at and marginally enjoyed but to be truthful to all ya'll i am not all that excited about sitting in front of a computer arranging text so that the spacing is optimal. I think I have enjoyed Graphic Design thus far only because they give us something to do and we make it ourselves, without the static hum of a customer to ruin our concentration. We just go at it, make a poster, make a brochure make whatever the fuck we are to make and its ours, we created it and that is that, its done and no one will ever bother us about it again. The real world is stifling, if i do say so myself. They give you a project and poke you with changes until it suits them and their little event or whatever the fuck they need it for. I dont want to be poked damnit. I just want to come up with concepts and make them but alas I must conform to the corporate world of graphic design and sell my ideas by the pound or else i shall starve and wither away. Who knows. Maybe i will make something so magnificent they will let me make a movie. Go me.

So, I made a website www.takemotowow.com.

Other than that i have been noticing the general decline of my graphic design into the shitter. Its a depressing thing to notice yourself slipping but at least i notice. I will have to work on this over break. Mostly I attribute this to my lack of time and ability to spend hours burried in books reading about all the nice things that are happening in the art world. Without the constant input of the artistic world around me i feel cut off and uninspired. Good thing this Winterbreak is coming and I will not be taking a winter class, hopefully. Turns out all the bullshit that my advisor fed me about not meeting all my requirment was just that, bullshit. I have enough credit and meet all requirements thank you very much.

In more sad news my friends are leaving. Edna and stacey are both graduating and leaving UMBC for good. This is a positive thing in that they will both be moving on to brighter and better futures than my current one. The negative is that they will not be around and this is no good considering I had some of the best memories of my life with them. Of course I got them nothing as a going away present but i suspect they expected nothing less of me. I guess all i can say is that, "Of course there will be tacos." and edna there will always be tacos here for you. "I am not hitting you and I am not drunk." Stacey, we all know the abusive person you can be and that is why we love you. You can always stop by and hit me in a drunken rage as much as you please. For now that is all for i tired and must sleep.

I am planning a trip. It will be fun.

I want to spend the rest of my life watching movies like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I am tired of being creative. I am going to bed now, and tomorrow I will Evaluate my staff. I honestly dont think I am qualified to evaluate anyone at the moment. I am going to turn my computer off tonight, it actually excites me.

Personal note: My bed is way too fucking close to my computer.

General note: My room is an awful place.

I probably wont be able to sleep tonight, I havnet been able to for a while. I am just going to read until the sun comes up and then sit in front of my computer waiting for it to make decisions for me. I am on the verge of giving away all the crap i have accumulated and starting over.

I had a good day despite my computer breaking and refusing to allow me to open more than one program at a time. Being a Graphic Designer and only being able to open Photoshop and Illustrator in turn is not a good way to live so money is being set aside for computer revamping.

Went out with some cool cats to a trendy place by the name of Melting Pot. It was delicious but the amount of time you have to devote to cooking and eating is ridiculous. Suffice it to say i gorged myself on a meal paid for by Stas so I took full advantage of that because honestly i thought it would be insulting not to overtly take my fill of his kind offer. Its been a while since I have had that much fun eating dinner. Our waitress was ass, it took her an hour to acknowledge our existence in her section and then a half hour between orders to come back so we could tell her that we havent gotten our orders. I discovered a few things during this dinner

1. Wind-up cars and hard cover menus = EXTREME CAR RAMPS FOR NITRO BURST JUMPS!
2. Broccoli dipped in steaming hot sauces should not be consumed directly after removal from said sauce
3. Using fondue forks to propel apples into the air results in children being set on fire.
4. Those tables that heat up the fondue sauce CAN be unplugged quite easily.
5. Stas rules

Holy crap I am tired. I have a lot of work to do tomorrow and something involving Billy Corgan, I dont really recall what it is but I am pretty sure its tomorrow. Anywho I must sleep so i can store energy for the Gding that will take place tomorrow morning before I go off for another adventure.

I am a Desk Manager, and being a Desk Manager I am required to take an RA clas. Your initial response should be, Well of course why wouldnt a MANAGER OF A DESK take a class about HOW TO BE AN RA!? Well it might suprise you to learn that I gain very little from the experience that is the two hour Ra class. I have been trying to find some redeeming quality that this class may bestow upon me, like some mystic power which will suddenly become exposed to me like the ability to fly and manage at the same time, but there is nothing to be gained from the class, I can only sit and let my thoughts wander while the teacher berates us with how to stop some freshman from missing something or another I honestly havent got a clue about what we are discussing currently its just too insignificant for me to even pay attention to.

My boss is one of the teachers for this class and today during our "1-on-1" discussion he asked if I had done the homework yet. Of course not, I reply realizing as I said it that I should have said, No I am planning on doing it today. My inability to control my mouth sometimes gets me in trouble, but usually my indifferent expressions help me avoid ever getting in trouble with such comments. People tend to protect themselves when they hear something they dont like thinking, "Oh, he is just joking." I usually do joke but there are many an occasion when I am not and everything I say is exactly what I mean. That was one of those occasion and he just smiled and said, Oh Nic, the favored catch phrase of those in denial. I guess keeping up this guise of someone who gives a shit about how the desk is run might cause occassional slip ups but this one was special to me. Well that is all for today I must be off to go print my Calendar which i spent entirely too much time laying out.

Most people have experiences in their life which are unique and help them figure out who they are, whether it be drugs, sex, going off to some wild trip like Burning Man. These things define the kind of person you are, these extremes help you sort out your emotions and conflicts with the world, its why you do them. I have never dropped all responsibility to have an adventure. Drugs are entirely absent in my life, random sexual encounters have never really appealed to me and going off on a random trip is too unstructured for me to even consider it. I have things to do in my life and leaving them behind to go on a trip, whether it be mental or physical, doesnt fit in my plan. The thing that worries me the most is, am I missing out on experiences which i will just crave in my old age looking back and regretting my wasted youth? Sitting at a computer for hours arranging shapes and text while I could have been off on some obscure mountain meeting people whos lives are totally different from mine. Leaving everything I have and setting off on an adventure seems so healthy to me. But ALL of my life I have been told to stay put and wait for a "good time" for such things. I have been told to build on my future with the things I do now. Yet everyone has probably set off on some excursion and gotten through it with all their peices, did I miss my chance for something like that? Or is it just that I dont need an adventure to figure myself out? Am I so overly self analyzing that I can just sit and think about my downfalls for hours and figure out all my qualms with the world without some external source to help me? Do I worry too much about what I need and dont need? Is my life being wasted worrying about my future and not caring about how I enjoy now? Will every second of my life be spent trying to reach some unattainable stability which will allow me safe tangents in my plan when all along I could have just left all my work behind to find a friend in Japan? I want to leave now but I cant I have jobs and people and things and all of this shit is like an anchor. Well I am overly fucking responsible and most likely I will not take any chances now but for god sakes I will need something to quench this over whelming disappointment with my life or I might just snap.

So classes are in full swing and the projects are beginning to pile up again. I am not worried. If anything I worry about not seeing my friends as much because I am so busy but then again I have a birthday coming up which I cant bring myself to care about so my apathy towards a social life almost seems natural. Honestly I want to plan an event for my turning 21 but it frightens me to even start to plan a party being that I have never done something like that. I dont have the enthusiasm when it comes to putting something social together which others seem to naturally have. If anything a night out on the town eating sushi and watching a movie might be in order but anything beyond that is beyond me so I will leave it out of reach.

My posters keep falling down and I havnt gotten around to picking any of them up, so its hard to walk anywhere without stepping on Brad Pitt, or Russell Crowe. I also have this huge tv in my room which I really need to send over to Grover so I can forget it existed.

Another interesting change in the daily routine of Nic, I dont really watch TV anymore. I have a tv but the effort it would take to buy a coaxial cable and snake it to my tv can not be justified. So, I have been putting on random dvd's to play in the background. My current favorite, Indiana Jones. I found out that I have never watched one of those movies from start to finish, I still havent but at least I am catching onto some cultural referances. I also have a desire to own a whip. wip?

Classes start tomorrow and I have decided that staying awake for three days straight organizing information that has been piling up since the beginning of summer is not a good way to start your year of schooling.

Having two jobs while also balancing a busy social life is something that I never really considered. I mean two years ago I had one job that was fairly simple now with my progressive climb of ResLife to the top I have two job which require more time than I think I really have. I mean everything should slow down and my life will become much simpler but for now everything is taking too long to do and I need to sit down and sort through the things that make my life difficult. I dont even know what classes I have tomorrow. My life is very unstable at the moment with four corners all tugging at me for attention.

In other news people are on campus as lively as I remember them to be. There is a new friend to be integrated into the social life of Nic called Howard, he is British. We broke him into the lovely consumer patterns of the US by taking him to Target and then Best Buy, he had heard of neither. It was fun to watch him as he picked up 10 dollar toasters wondering how it could possibly cost so little. Though apparently can openers are cheaper in London.

I am in training for my new position as a Desk Manager. I was a PA Manager but I have downgraded to the job of managing a desk in one of the dorms at UMBC. I am also starting my job as an Ads Manager. So, I guess I have come along in status among the campus positions, reaching various managerial positions is something for the resume, but its all very soul crushing to me to go from one manager position to another knowing full well that I don’t have any passion for such things. I don’t care how a desk is run or how PA's are doing while painting or moving whatever amount of furniture is needed across campus, these things don’t exhilarate me. I can’t complain though, I worked hard and got to where i am regardless of how much I will actually enjoy it. It’s just a bit lonely being the person who has to give all the orders or keep people on track, or is it just that recently it’s been lonely seeing all of my friends move out to far off places. All of this coupled with my nightly dreams of going to Japan to wander about a place with actual culture has given me anxieties I have not felt for quite some time. I guess the knowledge that I might be going away this winter break is something for the soul but its so very far away that I just want to get through all the bullshit of classes and work for just ONE moment in a theoretical future that everything around me is muted in importance. All my life things have been shifting, constantly moving in unrelated direction and now that all of my tangents are starting to all point in a similar direction all of my hopes for adventure are starting to fade just the slightest, and that is something I cannot let happen. Of course now with that feeling I start to plan ways out of all the monotony that could possibly await me, but in the back of my head i constantly question the motives of such impulses. Is this just a way for me to avoid my future; is this my way of escaping responsibility? I don’t know, i just want to get out of this place and have a week or two where my only responsibility is to have a bit of fun and learn something about myself. All of this time in college i have spent worrying about how i will measure up when the real world comes. That is no way to go through college and in all honesty i don’t want to but now at the end with my last year ahead of me chances seem too risky with the light at the end of the tunnel finally visible, but that’s the way i felt in high school that’s the way i always feel, Why risk the finality of completion for something that will only cause momentary happiness when this long awaited end will bring much better things? Well, I have waited to reach the end for a long while and nothing has come along to bring any sort of completion to my life so why not just wander off to some strange country where you don’t understand their language and have a few beers with someone who knows nothing about you?

God damnit, i hate it when you have something on your mind but cant shake it and you constantly have this sinking sensation in your stomach so you try and distract your mind with porn and anime, but it doesnt work and you have allergies so you sneeze constantly and then your nose bleeds from the sneezing and then you try and read a book but you cant cause you are sneezing and dying a little inside every time you smear snot on your precious precious book. sigh, i am pathetic.

In other news, i wandered baltimore this morning while drinking Mango soda from Donna's and watched homeless people be homeless, it was interesting because most of them have this bag of stuff and occasionally they will reach into the bag and pull out the most random things, like one was sitting and drinking a soda and suddenly he reached into his bag and pulls out a shoe and throws it away. Why did he have that extra shoe? Another one was reading a magazine he had pulled out of the trash earlier and when he got up to put the magazine in his bag he pulled out dolls, like not old dirty dolls, new dolls like Barbie and something that looked like a naked baby. I was frightened at first but then thought, aww he probably just killed and raped a child to get them he isnt all that bad. One homeless man had two dogs and i wondered how he fed them, or was it that he bred dogs in order to eat them, like someone plants a garden or raises cattle. Anywho the city is a fun place to wander about while listening to Ratatat.

So I have not been updating for some time because i have been busy like a mofo and otherwise happy with little or nothing to say about my current surroundings. That has changed recently though, not the happiness thing but the lack of things to say.

I went to NY this weekend to meet up with a bunch of strangers from the internet i had never even talked to before with my friend Stas. It was a meet up for this forum called www.somethingawful.com. We went to a Lesbian Parade and tried to march but people were upset with us because we had a robot and signs that said, FDR planned pearl harbor, Get America out of Vietnam and Denying Gay Rights is "Straight" up wrong. I didnt think we had anything THAT offensive but apparantly a dancing mexican robot



and various signs held by MEN are evil automatically and they thought we were trying to march against them, to say the least the police didnt find it funny.



So we got kicked out of a lesbian march against the bush administration, Lesbians are more close minded then i would have thought, we are just such attention whores i guess that they couldnt allow us to steal all the glory. But in all honesty if a couple of geeks from the internet can steal the attention from your entire parade then you need to reconsider where your priorities stand. I mean they didnt even have that many signs and the ones they did were lacking any creative spark. Some of them thought our signs were hilarious, but a select few asked how we could sleep at night. Oh well, after the March Eviction a noodle house was visited



it was delicious. Later we partied the night away playing Karaoke Revolution for three hours, that game is the best thing that could ever have happened to us at 3 am. So NY was muy muy funo. Besides that i have visited Hershey Park for the first time with my boy Grover and had tons o fun riding rollercoasters and eatin chocolate. I am still at UMBC working hard being a manager of some sort. I hope to visit my mother soon for fourth of july and am planning on seeing Fahrenheit 9 11 soonish because there is so much hype that it must be good, too bad moore is a dirty filthy liar, I really dont care though because honestly if you base your entire opinion of america on a movie that some fat extremist made then you need to read a fucking book or two.

This morning I was listening, rather than watching, MTV due to various things i had to attend to and realized i could not distinguish the majority of groups that were played. They all seem to be stuck in this Post Punk/Indie phase where they wont stand in line or they dont want to be like everyone else, but they sound exactly like one another. Or they want to mix rap and rock and then scream about things like love or whatever positive thing POD is singing about now. Its almost like we are stuck in this era of one hit wonders that only last due to the total lack of anything original which seems to work out for all of the groups being that none of them will ever stand out in any unique way. So now with a lack of any pop icons to feed off the radio and MTV have taken to stealing my secret music, Postal Service, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Modest Mouse, Pavement. I know these groups are commonly known among those of us that matter but to the majority of popular culture they were entirely foreign and I am not saying that they should have stayed that way but now MTV and HFS are feeding them to the public as something that SHOULD be popular and so they will be perceived as such regardless of their talent and meaningful lyrics. Its like by exposing them and selling them off to the masses it is cheapening my personal relationship with the music and that bothers me. Of course this is an entirely selfish way to view this phenomena but i cant help but let it annoy me. And honestly, have you seen the videos for Postal Service? They are awful, i honestly couldnt see how Ben Gibbard and Dntel werent spinning in their dark corners where they linger on past relationships. And as much as i love the song Fell in Love with a Girl, WHY THE FUCK DID SOME STUPID SLUT REMAKE IT INTO THAT ABOMINATION OF Fell in Love with a Boy?! It physically hurts me to hear the song more so than even Linkin Park. Bands like Good Charlette, POD, Hoobastank [sp?] and Linkin Park that raps and yells with rock or whatever they have nothing original to give so they all just lower the standards of music so theirs doesnt stand out nor sink down it just barely meets the appetites of the current populous. And Rap, i know i dont understand you to any degree, but all of your videos are the same, for god sakes try something original, we know you have money and cars and sexy women like to dance to your music in extreme slow motion, we are all bored with it.

I need these books:

White Graphics: the power of white in graphic design
The Art of Promotion
Minimal Graphics: The Powerful New Look of Graphic Design
Paper Graphics: The Power of Paper in Graphic Design

They like to use the word POWER, it makes me want them more even though i know its a ploy.

Basically any book published by Rockport, they rule. I think White Graphics is the most orgasmic book ever created by man. It makes me happy just holding it, which i did for an hour today in Borders, making cooing noises at it while onlookers wondered at the ways my parents went wrong.

Spring Break!!! WOOT!

.... umm... so i am going to sit in my room and read some books and watch anime and then do the tons of homework my teachers decided to assign me so i wouldnt have too much fun. That is my spring break.

I saw Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind for the second time today. I have a desire to see it a third time. It is a brilliant movie with a beautiful script. The visuals are amazing and compelling and i honestly feel inspired while watching it. A movie which i havent even heard of up until now is Garden State WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY ZACH BRAFF! For those uneducated on the Zach Braff-ness he is an actor who is currently JD on Scrubs, the greatest show of all time. I want to see that movie more than i want to have sex with Mike Post... well not really, but the two are comparable and that is saying something. I have looked everywhere for the trailer so i could post it but i cant find it. apple.com/trailer you have let me down for the first time, i lament.

I guess i am more emotional than i actually consider myself to be. I am just worn down to the point where i cant remember what i am supposed to do at any given moment, i just end up doing it out of fear and necessity, i guess those two are dramatically linked. I am tired, so much so that it doesnt take much to offend me, doesnt take much to aggravate or even just annoy me. I am so tight inside that i find it hard to interact with other people, they are doing things around me that i dont have time to consider, making jokes and smiling at things i dont have time to smile at. Then again i waste more time than most people i know. I just cant handle the pressure of so much work while also trying to deal with so many frequent tragedies. I will get over this. So many things are ending for me at the moment which no one could possibly understand. All of this is just a warning i guess. Or maybe an apology. I dont have time to take people into consideration at the moment. So I am trying my best not to disappear.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOK COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEER



Judge me.

I am at the desk, its 4:11 in the morning and I was miserable but then a resident told me that I looked miserable and said that he was going to bring me something to cheer me up. He brought me Cds, Mirah and Modest Mouse. Joy. He is now my favorite residents, i saw him at the Unicorns show so in my book he is family.

Working on a project for many hours sometimes drags you around, creatively. After a while when things seem to cease improving you kind of stop caring, and then suddenly you do something ridiculous and stupid that ends up making the project acceptable. And thats when you start to remember the reason you design, so that you can make cool shit and show it off. Regardless I am pleased with how my bookcover is coming along. I will post it when done.

OMG i am so ridiculously tired. At this point having me at the desk is pointless because i wont react to any disaster efficiently, i will just run in circles, or just fall asleep with panic. yes at this point i think anything will induce sleep especially fire, for some reason, probably because its warm and i am cold at the moment, cold with sleepeeness.

Saw Starsky and Hutch, it was amusing and worth seeing. There was a woman in the audience who would hoot extremely high pitched when something even mildly amusing would occur,most of the audience was laughing at her throughout the majority of the movie. She was unacceptably obese with this large tub of popcorn and nachos but she was happy so thats fine. Ok, im going to sit here staring into space listening to Mirah La Familia.

I returned home yesterday and parked my car only to fall asleep with the lights and radio still on. How i slept for an hour and half in my car i will never know but it felt bloody right! I got up only because Limp Bizkit came on and woke me from a dream involving a book and my inability to retrieve it due to the fact that i didnt know the ISBN. Strange. Sleep is a good thing, i have enjoyed sleep for many years and it has treated me well. I should sleep more often.

Tomorrow i have another interviewish type of thing that will decide whether i get free housing next year or not. it doesnt bother me in the least. I got a check for 67 dollars in the mail and it made me happy, so i cashed it and will probably spend it on various little things that will get me through the day.

I have yet to be paid for working at my school paper, which is actually a nice thing because that means all the moneys is being built up and soon i will receive a tidal wave of a paycheck! Or... they will just never pay me. Either way I am happy to have something to put on my resume. Speaking of which the SGA here has asked me to help them design something or another, i dont really know yet they didnt really elaborate, or rather he didnt. WOOT BUSY WEEKEND!

In other news: I have a test in Sociology and have not gone to class. I have not read the book nor do i know what the test is on regarding the book. I am the smartest man ALIVE! Off to spanish class now to learn the ways of the ninja.

Adios.