The life of an office drone...

As I sit in my office getting giddy over the e-mails sent by the boyfriend over at EA Mythic, I realize what a sad sorry state I am in.

Here I am, a working college graduate. I should be thankful for the cards I've been dealt. After all, I could be unemployed. I could be living with my parents. I could be (God forbid) carless. Luckilly, I'm pretty independant. I can afford groceries (usually...), and depending on how well I work here, I could go a bit farther. But it's a miserable existence, to be here, day in and day out with nothing to do.

So I'm working on my painting. My digital painting skills aren't the best in the world, and I aim to make them better. It's been a dream of mine to be a skilled fantasy or comic book artist, so lemme take the time out of my boring day to paint. This is my best, so far. It's called "Sunset Sonata", and it's based off of an RP that I did with someone in World of Warcraft a few weeks ago. Ninorra, my character, is a warlock who's singing voice inspires emotions in people. Skafloc, a WoW buddy of mine, is seen here listening to her while he simultaniously gets a message that his ex-wife is being hunted down and murdered. All things considered, it was a pretty hot RP. No, these two pictured aren't romantically linked. Actually, Ninorra is hapilly married, and Skafloc is with another lady. But there was a weird connection between them, even if they have absolutely nothing in common. I liked painting this. I hope I can do better.

Another Monday..

So comes another week. Last week was so wonderful I don't know how I'll be able to survive this one. I suppose I'll be working on my webcomic, or a new drawing. I have terrible art ADD. I always get tired of my projects too early and not finish it, or finish it half-assed. I hate that about myself.

I'm looking at a few inspirational pieces, though. I think I'll start at the beginning, and try my hand once again at digitally painting. Usually when I try this I'm impressed with myself for a day, then I go back and I realize it was a total disaster. Artists are their biggest critics, but mine makes me utterly depressed. Then again, this could just be the depression talking. Give it a few hours and I might be happy as a clam.

One thing is for sure.. I'm absolutely sick of this office and this monotinous lifestyle. Please God lets sign that contract with our agent soon, lets finish out album, lets go on tour. I feel alive when I'm singing, when I'm writing music. I've known that since I was old enough to know what singing was. Now that I've found my musical niche, I'm ready to step into it. The rest of my band is, too. I just hope the world is ready to accept us.

On weight and suicide

So I was talking to Willie the other day, about how weight management was important. I was telling him it was neccisary for him to eat plenty of vegetables (while trying to get him to eat his green beans, goshdammit), because eating vegetables is an easy way to get full without being full on needless carbs or sugars. I told him about the obesety epedemic this country is facing, and you know what he said?

"Sure, everyone's fat. But look at our suicide rate compared to Japan."

It made me think.

He's totally right.

I'm not going to actually agree that just because we're fatter means we're less prone to suicide, but it is a funny coincidence. And by funny I mean horrible. The leading cause in most suicides in Japan is stress. Due to it's small size and economic dependancy on foreign goods, as well as it's constant population growth and competative job market, suicide is huge in Japan. Yet here in the US, land of the fat-ass, we depend on outsourced workers to do our jobs for us. Yes, we have unemployed people, but they are by no means an epidemic. Just for fun, take a look at these statistics:

In 2003, Japan had 34,427 suicides. 27 out of every 100,000 people died by suicide.

In the US, it was 6.78 per 100,000 people.

Now add..

The average weight for a woman in Japan is 100-110lbs.

In the US, it's 140lbs.

It's interesting. I'm not gonna say that they're dependant on eachother, because obviously that's not the case. Japan's suicide rates are due to, like I said, stress and pressure and the competative job market. Not because they're skinny. But.. could there be a connection between the overall use of pleasure-centers in the brain that Americans can easilly access with food?

Well then there's the argument that the only reason we CAN access these pleasure centers is because we have money, due to our country's less competition driven work force.

But then you can argue that the US is just as competative as Japan, and that our society is built on stress. The average salary for the US is $36,764. In Japan, it's roughly around $30,000. Our average salaries are similar, however take in mind how much more expensive it is to live in Japan. Food especially costs more, which is why many people depend on small ready-made packaged food.

But then...

Japan's unemployment rate is 4.0%. The US's unemployment rate is 4.8%.

So the US actually has MORE unemployed people than Japan! So there could actually be a link to what Willie said! Is that crazy, or what? IN THEORY, one could argue that being "fat and happy" has it's merit. IN THEORY. When you look at the statistics between these two countries, there is evidence. I'm not saying all Japanese people are unhappy, heck no! But it is possible that Americans are more easilly content because we are more easilly fed with pleasure inducing food. Food that is, unfortunately, bad for us physically.. but releases chemicals in the brain that causes us to feel content.

Is that amazing or what? Now why didn't I study in sociology?

Prodigies and composing

So I'm guessing this kid doesn't spend a lot of time with friends. Actually, he says so himself.

Meet the 15 year old composing prodigy. He is an example of how music and intelligence go hand in hand. Sometimes I don't think people understand the genius it takes to write good music. I'm not talking about a catchy tune, or even lyrics. I'm talking about how all of the instruments fit together, how they compliment eachother. As a composer myself, I know what I like to hear and what I like to make. I listen to the other metal bands that perform with me, and many of them are so reptatative it makes me wonder if they know what they're playing at all. Their songs have no structure, their instruments are mashed together at the same volume, and the singer growls in the same monotone voice throughout the entire song.

Now, with stuff like Dethklok I don't mind. It's funny. And to be honest, the instrumental background to all of their songs are well put together. You can her the lead guitar harmonizing with the rhythm guitar. You can hear the bass and the drums working together. That's what makes good music. Cooperation between the different facets. Not one instrument fighting for dominance.

We have six songs ready for the album, so far. We need 9. I'm hoping that by the time we have this album ready, people will understand that we're not just another metal band. We're something different. I don't sing like most female singers do, in metal bands. I have a low alto voice that can growl and move to a high soprano. Our lead guitarists are completely different in that one of them is influenced by power metal, and the other by standard US old-school metal. Our drummer is phenominal. Our bass player can play all of these instruments.

I'm hoping none of this goes to waste. I'm hoping that one day, we'll be appreciated for all of the work we're putting into this band, and won't be brushed aside by the latest teen idol. We take pride in our songs, and we take pride in the fact that they are indeed OURS. Now all we have to do is make some more of them.

On illigal immigrants

So this morning I went to Maaco to have Sunstreaker's spoiler repaired. It was sagging at the sides due to 1) my car being a low rider and easilly screwed up by curbs and 2) me being a dumbass and hitting curbs.

I went in and the dude looks it over. He says it will cost $550 to REPLACE the spoiler because I tore the thing completely apart. Damn. Way to go, Toyota. I swear to goodness, my car is light, but it's pieces are made of freaking cardboard. I seriously did NOT hit the curb that fast. I backed into it and hardly nicked it, but there you go.

So I'm all sad and I'm like, "Can't you just put some screws in it? Glue it?" because I'm a little desperate. Dude tells me they can put screws in it. It won't look great, but they'll do it.. so I say go for it, since it'll be a quick fix until I decide to replace the whole thing. Dude agrees, takes my car to the guys behind the creepy door.

I wait no more than five minutes.

A mechanic rolls my car back in, with two teeny weeny little black dots on each side of my spoiler. The screws. I was like "Oh! Dude!" because seriously, you can hardly see them. A little touch up paint or no, they're hardly there. And the spoiler is held up just fine. The guy in charge says it'll be $10, so I hand him my card.

No can do, apparently. I offer him a check, but nope.. the guy who fixed it doesn't have a bank account. He asks me for cash to give to him.

I think to myself, "This is a telltale sign of an illigal immigrant." I mean, he has a big white dude as his boss, he only takes cash, and he fixed my otherwise $550 spoiler for $10. Boss tells me I can go, it's fine. So I ran to an ATM,, took out $20, and ran back to pay them.

I understand the plight of illigal immigrants. Moreso do I understand that all most of them want to do is make an honest living, working. Unfortunately, they have really shitty represantatives out there that make the rest of them look bad. In general, the Latino work ethic is uncanny. We work for dimes and make this country sing, and people still hate it because they didn't come here legally. Which believe me, I understand. Laws need to be upheld. That's just the way it is.

I just wish that there was something that could be done to help them come here legally. I wonder sometimes, if all these immigrants were legal, would people still complain? Is this a race issue, or just an illigal immigrant issue? I'm not sure, but I do HOPE it's not a race issue.

Metal heaven has smiled upon us..

The metal gods have smiled upon us.

Blood Corps now has a new drummer. Yep, we fired Larry last night. It was gut wrenching, because while he was a really nice and friendly guy.. his attitude and style just didn't mesh with ours. We needed someone fast, someone who liked power metal, someone our age.

So now we have Rob. OH. MY. GOD. Rob is amazing.

Once the drummer for a power metal band called "Forgotten Realms" (LOL!!!!!), he studied at a prestegious music school (who's name escapes me) and plays a beautiful double bass pedal. Last night we asked him to play Run to the Hills with us. I literally squealed. I think I squealed all night. I was so happy I could have easilly fainted. It was that beautiful.

We're working on what songs to do next. Last night we practiced a bit of our new original, Death in the Hallows (Not a Harry Potter tribute, I swearz), and it came out so amazingly that I wanted to scream. In fact, I did. I screamed all night. My throat is so raw from all of the growling I added to my singing, but I tell you what, his drumming was so inspirational that I couldn't help it. I gave my 200% and I took the pain associated with heavy growling, and I growled like Hansi from Blind Guardian until my tiny little black heart could take no more.

We'll be booking more shows for the next few months. Narain gets back from India today, so we finally.. FINALLY.. have our permanant 5 man line-up.

On love and art

More on love..

Today I did a drawing of two characters from WoW. The girl, Seppa, is my character, Ninorra's, mother. She was born into a poor social standing and made her money as a musician. The guy is Tirdisar, a rich dude who pretended to be poor so he could play his music in bars. They met, fell in love, ect.

This picture happens some 40 odd years after they fell in love, (elves live a long time, har har), and after a lot of crap happens that took them away from one another.

That isn't the point, though. The point I'd like to make is that love is in the last place you expect to find it. I'm usually okay with expressions in my drawings. Sometimes they're better than others. This one, though, this one is the best I've ever done. What is love? It's right on their faces. That's love.

Click here for picture, NSFW

Thoughts on Love

It occurs to me that I am very lucky.

There are people out there who don't have love in their lives. I know, because most of my friends are these people. They're mostly dudes who have had crushes on me in the past, but the truth is that I think they only see what they want to see. To them I'm a glamorous artist and musician who plays video games. I'm hot to them because I share their interests. They can talk to me and feel accepted, so it's easy enough to understand why every so often, one of them admits he's had feelings for me.

I don't mind. I just wish that there were more girls out there who shared their interests. Girls who ARENT gross fangirls who take advantage of guys like this. Girls who genuinely want to be their friend. It seems like most girls I meet who date gamers do enjoy gaming, but they date gamer guys because most of them can be easy to manipulate. That really sucks. Everytime I see Willy, I'm reminded of how lucky I am for having a boyfriend that loves every part of me. Even the bipolar depressive obsessive compulsive Nina, who spends all night folding laundry or crying over someone who died that she never met. Honestly, I have lots of dumpable offenses. I'm glad I'm with someone who sees past them, and what's more, considers them to be cute little quirks instead of huge issues.

No longer starving!

So it turns out I have more money than I thought! Hahaha.. I got confused over my "available balance" and that other type of balance they give you over the phone.. so instead of being flat broke, I am not! I was gonna use the 5$ I have to buy Odin enough food to tide him over 'till our next pay day, but now I can actually buy people food, too! You know what sucks is that I could have gone to the mountains this weekend... >.<

Oh well! This means I'll have more than enough to be able to go THIS weekend! Yay! Road trip! Fun fun fun! Just gotta wait for this damn week to end. It's only Tuesday and I'm already feeling dead.

Sigh..

Another day, another Atkins shake to tide me over for the next.. er... five hours? Well, that's not exactly fair. See I've already been here for four hours. So the shake is supposed to last me for nine.

I really need a raise. I never figured I'd actually be a "starving artist", but I just can't bring myself to eat unhealthy food anymore. Given the choice between Ramen and starving, I'd much rather starve. I dunno which is worse, really.

This weekend flew by quickly, and I'm pretty dissapointed in how it was spent. I love WoW, don't get me wrong, but an entire weekend indoors, when outside it was so bright and beautiful really made me sad. I hate spending weekends indoors, but I'm broke, and Willy isn't willing to pitch in so we can go drive somewhere nicer. I had been planning a trip to VA to take the Skyline Drive, maybe visit an orchard, but no dice. He had to pay $400 to get his car fixed (LAME), and I had to pay for medicine, amongst other things. This really blows. I hate not having money. Where the hell is that raise I was promised?

Must.. lose..

So after the voting, it seems that 45% of people think that 130lbs at 5'1" isn't overweight, but 55% does.

This tells me that people are kind of split in half on the issue. On the one hand, sure, it's okay to be a little bigger than what is "normal". Nobody's perfect. On the other hand, why shouldn't I strive to be the best that I can be? I can certainly do it if I try hard enough, that much was already proven when I lost 50lbs four years ago.

So no more coming up with excuses. There's no need for me to have to stay depressed because of my appearence, when it's obvious I can do something about it. Most of the problem lies in getting the right type of foods, and when you live with 3 other people who all eat LOTS of carbs, that can be pretty hard. We have a rice cooker, we buy 20lb bags of rice, we make rice on a daily basis to go with EVERYTHING (daggone Asians.. ;) ), so it's always there to tempt me. And when I don't have any low-carb meals or food to make meals with, it's hard to sit there and starve while everyone else can eat so easilly.

I'll be going grocery shopping, tonight. I've been putting it off way too long, and no, the laundry is not going to magically do itself. I'll have to do that, too. The toilet paper has been running low, we're basically out of all neccisary condiments, and we're even out of soap and contitioner.

No more being lazy! Must go shopping for bare essentials!

National Novel Writing Month!

Well, it's that time of year again.. when all would-be novelists try to embark on a journey of epic proportions. Yes, it's National Novel Writing Month! Sponsored by NaNoWriMo, this project is for all people to try and write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.

I'm working on a horror/thriller type book, at the moment. So far I'm up to 2,646 words, and I've just finished the first chapter! I'm hoping I can keep up this frantic writing and get this thing done. I've always wanted to write a novel, and I've got a few in the works, but I'm so daggone lazy and never end up finishing them.

Well, this is my year!! Wish me luck! My screen name over at NaNoWriMo, is, of course, DuchessOfDork, if you'd like to keep track of my progress!

Cry more, noob!

I love it when people talk about this sort of problem with America. How we are so concerned with what everyone else is doing, that we refrain from solving out own problems. this article, written by Roland S. Martin, says just that.

"Now we must take action. You must decide whether you want to complain about your situation or work to fix the problem. You may not be able to end the war in Iraq yourself, but when you begin to build alliances with others, your action may change the hearts of many in Washington.

You may not be able to solve our education crisis in America, but maybe if you and others get together and begin to tutor young kids, you could increase reading and math scores for your little group.

In the Bible, Nehemiah sought to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem. Others called him nuts for thinking he could do so. But he pressed on. He also told the people not to focus on others, but just on rebuilding the area in front of their home. When each household just rebuilt their portion of the wall, then the entire wall would be finished, and that would provide protection for everyone."

Take these words to heart, people. If there's a problem, try to fix it. Don't just complain and wait. Do something to better the world instead of judgemental and lazy.

Ew.

Alright, so a few things. First off in the news..

Everyone's favorite blonde bombshell--, no, not Jessica Simpson, Dog the Bounty Hunter! Well he was caught using the "N word". A lot.

All I can say is this, mister Dog.. it's probably not a good idea to use the N word AT ALL, if you know it will effect you in bad ways. Don't tell me you can't help it. You can and you know it. I don't feel sorry for you in the least.

Now, on to me. I got back on the wagon, after going to visit my mom and picking up some goodies at the Italian supermarket near my parent's house. MAN I love that place.. such good prices for good deli meat. I wish we had a place like that around here! I got some provolone, pepper jack, mortadella, and a big thing of mixed olives. I looove olives.. here's hoping I can stay on track, huh?