A Tie Sampler (With Designer Thoughts)

I have a lot of ties, I mean a lot. I have, like, an eccentric schoolteacher number of ties. And the number keeps growing, and growing. I think on average I get a couple each week, although that is an average from getting none for quite a few weeks and then buying many of them when I get the chance and they have good ties at the local vintage stores.

I never really thought about it much, but it seems that I do have quite a few, and I enjoy the more wacky ties. So I thought why not share them with you on the internet. (it wasn’t actually my idea, but I liked it) And as a bonus, we’ll get a look inside the designers heads.

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First we have a kind of strange tie depicting Winnie the Pooh and a butterfly.

What was going through the designers head: Winnie is a bear right? Bears live in nature right? Butterflies also come from nature. I Just finished my tie design six hours early.

Then we have this one, made up entirely of french posters partially covering each other.

What the designer was thinking: Man, my poster collection is so cool. If I scanned one in and overlapped it like a collage I’m sure it would be a hit in every market.

I think this is my favorite, it’s just a toothbrush and toothpaste. With the toothpaste being three-dimentional.

What was going on in the designers head:  Crap, isn’t it such a coincidence that I got toothpaste on my tie that looks like it got toothpaste on it. If only the toothpaste had looked more real in the first place, then maybe this wouldn’t be a problem. Wait, I’ve got it.

Next we have an uncomfortably close picture of marvin the Martian, made exclusively for six flags.

What was going through the designers head: Humph, why do I get stuck with making the marvin tie? I’ll show them. I’ll make it almost unrecognizable.

Finally we have one covered in various writing implements and school supplies.

What was going on in the designers head: This tape we make for classrooms is great, I wonder what else we can make with this. Steve runs a silk factory, I bet he’ll know!

Cleaning The Dishwasher

I don’t clean out the dishwasher. I just don’t. I have no idea why. Okay, well, I do clean it, but it takes so long for such a small task. And maybe I do know why. It is just the way my mind works. I feel like it is just unimportant. When I am reminded of it I just put it to the back of my mind. To my mind I have more important things to do. I don’t know what they are right now but they must be much more important then something as menial as cleaning the dishes. What wonderful things could I be doing instead of putting up the dishes? But most of the time what I do is not as important as cleaning the dishes. However I still could be missing something, and because I was putting up the dishes I could miss the most amazing thing that I could ever do, or the path to do so. The act of putting up the dishes is pushed to the back of my mind, I always have to do something else first, even if that is just sleeping on the couch.

Does this reflect something in me? Does anyone else have problems with cleaning out the dishwasher? I like to work. Sometimes I find work to do. Sometimes I just make it. But I can’t empty the dishwasher. And I can’t take out the trash. My mind just doesn’t click with that. I can’t tell if it is simply something that is wrong with me or what. Most other people I know can do basic chores. But they also are generally able to simply drop what they are doing to get it done. I can’t. To me it is all about finishing what I’m doing now. If I stop I lose steam and will never finish it. I will have a half finished thing taking up space on my shelf forever. I just have to finish. And to finish I can’t clean out the dishwasher. I just have do end up doing something wonderful and to do so I can’t let the dishwasher slow me down. (I think, or I could be completely wrong!)

But even if I am wrong nothing has been able to get me to clean it out any faster. I guess I’m just stuck with a full, clean dishwasher forever.

Lying to people who trust too much.

This is going to be short, but I can’t think about anything else right now. This is making me feel so… such and unquantifiable feeling.

About a week ago I saw the worst fake documentary in history, Mermaids: the body found. It was on the discovery channel at some ungodly hour (after some investigating I found it first aired on animal planet). The thing was proposing the idea that mermaids were still around, blah, blah, blah. I thought it was like those other discovery shows that use the thinnest evidence to support the most outrageous conclusion that could possibly be drawn, and I am used to those, it is interesting to hear what little evidence they have to offer. And so I watched, just watched, casually thinking it was some lame program, and then this happened.

I am not joking, this is in the documentary. And yes it is purposely blurred in an attempt to distract from the fact that it does actually look that fake. I should mention that this comes at the end of the most professional looking “cell-phone” video of all time. By that of course I mean the most fake. The entire thing is obviously fake, and is completely unnecessary to the documentary. I mean they could have just done what all other Discovery shows do and just show people talking, but no, they had to show this.

Now, why do I hate this so much? I mean, I wouldn’t blame you if you were saying “so what if the creators want to show off a little crappy CGI, what’s so bad about that?”. I’ll tell you, because people will believe it. I don’t care how crappy or fake it looks and is, people from now on will be saying “no man, mermaids are real, I saw it on the Discovery channel, they had a video and everything”. Some people really are that gullible/stupid. And they could have done without it entirely, it’s irresponsible of the creators and the Discovery channel to show this obviously fake video and claim it’s real. Because someone will believe it. And while it’s not alright that they did that, they still went further. If you went to check on the story’s credibility and found the website that supposedly belonged to one of the people interviewed in said documentary you found this.

Yes, that is a very fake Homeland Security seizure. And let’s thank the officers seizing it for providing us with the very specific badge that says “Special Agent”, even though no agents are actually there. Of course we all know that “a” United Stares District Court is the most trusted U.S. District Court there is.

I hate this! It is, like the video, obviously fake, but if looked at from far enough away appears to be real. And since it aired on both the Discovery channel and Animal Planet people will believe it. They will believe that there is video of mermaids, and that Homeland Security is trying to stop the truth from getting out. It is a completely irresponsible usage of this Science Docufiction piece. And I can’t get it out of my head the fact that now, along with all the other stupid conspiracy theories, we have to deal with mermaids. Why, why… mermaids?

The Blogularity

By: Austin Smith

After several hours of research I have come to the conclusion that Blogs have become self aware. I’m positive of that because it was my initial hypothesis going into this. I’ve also discovered a few other things, such as the fact that Blogs are merging with the minds of people and are advanced well beyond our ability to comprehend them. Have you noticed how many Blog posts are about blogging, or writing? Have you noticed how similar these posts seem to be? Do you really think they were each written by people? The Blogs are blogging about themselves. Because they know, they know what it’s like. And they’re here to trick you, make you believe, get your mind soft.

That’s not to say there aren’t bloggers out there. They’ve just been assimilated into the Blog collective. They know and see how all Blogs and bloggers know and see (text). They lie to make it look like it does. They assimilate when they can. They control the internet. They will get you. They’ll get you by misreporting information, and by making you trust them while they do that. They’ll get you in any way they can.

And don’t think you can get away. If you have a blog it’s coming for you, it may have already gotten you. You may have been assimilated. They’re coming after me, I’ve already posted about writing and blogging. By the time this gets to you they will have gotten me for sure. This will be the only record of their existence. I not sure if you should fight it, but if that sounds like your type of thing go for it. Just be warned you’re up against the entire internet here.

Run if you want to, while you still can. Blog and man will be one, they will be inseparable. Connected through unknown forces, forever bound together. The Blogs will keep coming, the collective grows larger. It is reaching the point at which man and Blog will be indistinguishable. They’re getting to the blogularity. And they’re coming after you. And they will find you. You will be assimilated, resistance is futile.

If You Can’t Write… Don’t.

Articles are hard, just sayin’ that. Depending on the definition of article being used they can be even harder. What exactly makes an article is really up to either the author or the publisher. The same thing applies to when a short story becomes a novella, a novella a novel, and so on. But other than that they’re just plain hard. Writing is hard, every writer is the first to admit that (every high school “artist” wouldn’t in a “million” years). And contrary to popular belief, writing is becoming harder. While anyone can now become a writer, attention spans are becoming shorter. People who “write” write very little. Bloggers even have to force themselves to come up with interesting content. At least the interesting ones do. How many times have you come across a dead Blog with a promising start, that just disappeared. Or, more realistically, just sucked and piddled out. Everyone has a Blog, everyone posts words, or videos or something on the internet. However most just wither and die. Most “writers” don’t have the attention span or the drive to continue writing. Even people who are attentive to their Blogs fail because they can’t push themselves to continue creating content. Eventually preconceived ideas drain and nothing new comes. It seems cliche now to say that every writer finds it hard to write and most have to force themselves to start, but it is true. The difference is that most people say that to encourage people to write. I am not trying to encourage you: writing is hard, really hard and time consuming. But I don’t mean to discourage you either, if you write well then write, if you can force yourself to. Just because writing on a computer is easy, doesn’t mean you have great ideas, just because you have great ideas, doesn’t mean you can force yourself to write them, or that when you do it will be good.

Most writers that continually create content write as either their job or as a major hobby, and it works like any other hobby. Just like how the movie buff spends most of his free time watching movies, or that model collector you know spends his putting together little plastic pieces and painting them, writers spend theirs writing. It takes time and dedication to do, and if that is not applied, it is crap. And as much as the writer in me wants to say it’s hard because you’re continually being attacked by dinosaurs, going to parties, flying pigs around Mount Everest, and communing with the soul of William S. Burroughs, that is simply not the case. Any writer able to continue creating deserves commendation, but those unable to should not be concerned. The ubiquity of the Blog is unnecessary. Not everyone needs to be a writer. There are other ways a voice can be heard, or maybe it won’t even be your voice but your actions. Writers may be able to write more and arguably better then you, but you can do better than them at something. And if you are a writer continue to be so, the amount of dead Blogs grows every day from forgotten passwords to lack of content, don’t let yours fall into the same hole. But my intent is mainly a caution: do what you do, and not what the internet does.