Tag Archives: fun

More Art

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Vis 1 Final

So here’s some more pics, not as pretty, but whatever. Here’s the statement I wrote for it:

When I first found out about this weeks assignment, I already had an idea in mind. I wanted to do something silly along the lines of this: http://www.cockeyed.com/pranks/mall/plazaprank.html. After scouting around La Jolla, I found a few potential targets (I thought about putting eye patches and weird hats on the dolphins at UTC), but quickly came to realize how bad something like this could end up (especially in La Jolla), and decided to do something a little less drastic. I couldn’t come up with anything until last Saturday, when I went up to L.A. to visit a friend. While there, we went to a few malls, stores, etc (Christmas shopping), and I was struck at how many Salvation Army bell ringers there were (though I’m used to seeing them at home, I thought it was a phenomena not as pronounced here in SoCal). There were even a couple dressed up as Santa! (Something I haven’t seen since I was little). That gave me a nice little surprise and I dropped some change off. On the way back home, I had to stop by school. When I got to the corner of La Jolla village dr. and Villa La Jolla, I saw a couple of homeless people looking for money and jobs. Now this wasn’t the first time I’ve encountered the less-fortunate around school, but seeing so many “Salvation Santas” in L.A. put the scene in a different context. It was then that I noticed that I haven’t seen a single bell ringer in La Jolla since I’ve been here. I went around searching for one, but the closest I could find was a small change drop box at Vons. This led me to the idea of making one up to atone for this, and setting it up at my original site, UTC. I also wanted to make some kind of statement with it to help shed light on how lucky Americans really are. I did consider making a real figure instead of a painting, but realized that if I did (and did it a real-life scale), it would be too hard and heavy to get to the mall. I didn’t really want to do anything that I’ve done before (drawing, water colors, pencils, etc), and figured that it would be a good opportunity to pick up and practice some painting skills so I used acrylics. I’ve never really painted before (well, not since I was little at least) with acrylics and wanted to see how I’d manage with them. In my opinion, it turned out very well (which prompted me to do another painting for the extra assignment). At first I had a little bit of difficulty coming out with even brush strokes, but I got the hang of it and had a lot of fun with them I really wished that I would have started using them earlier, as I like them much better than water colors and pastels (mixing colors is easier and more fun for me with paints).

           Going back to Santa, at first I wanted to find one that I could use as a subject, but I didn’t even see any Downtown (maybe they were on break though, I went there 2 days ago and heard quite a few bells). Wanting to get started, I decided just to sketch out the ringer, and turn him into Santa while painting. After doing a couple rough sketches, I became satisfied with one of them and went home. When I got around to painting, I googled up a few popular Santa images (my main source was the Coca-Cola Classic Santa), and referenced them for my own. I chose not to put the traditional Santa hat on him because the one that originally inspired me was quite bald (and proud of it).

           I chose the words, “Are you helping?” solely to instill guilt upon its reader. UTC being such an extravagant and excessive mall, I felt that it was quite an appropriate reminder to others that there are many only less fortunate people. I also didn’t paint the words on, because I felt it could make a nice and friendly Christmas poster without a heavy handed moral getting in the way.           

           I had trouble with 2 main parts with this assignment. First of all, I didn’t know what to do for the eyes. I don’t consider myself to be a great drawer, and didn’t feel like ruining a nice happy face with strange looking eyes. Not wanting to risk it, I borrowed some happy-looking anime style eyes. Secondly, I had a LOT of trouble with the collection bin. First, I didn’t know where to place it (I originally wanted to depict a hanging one, complete with the Salvation Army Sign, but I felt that it would have blocked too much of Santa. After finally figuring out a place for it, I sketched it out and it seemed all right. When It came to painting it though, I could not for the life of me figure out how it was supposed to look, and was very frustrated (I finally felt like I got it right towards the very end of my painting).

I still have a few more things that I wanted to add (like a few concept sketches), but that’ll come tomorrow. I’m sooooooo beat right now… I hit a lotta traffic in SD and LA, and driving I-5 North all the way up during the night is really boring and tiring.

g’night

Tacos Today

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JohnBeltran – Dia Brioso
What a Friday! Just had 1 class (nihongo section) and a few 1/1’s. It was nice seein’ ya David, Aaron and Jaime. It’s cool to see you all doin’ good and still havin’ fun.
(Same with the rest of you all!) After my last 1/1, Mel brought up TJ. And since it was only 3, we could beat traffic!

So off we went.

9 adovada tacos each, a horchata and a beer later, we went up to the English speaking dude at Taco Bell and ordered 18 more (hey, its better than the 30 we got last time!).

Damn dude those things are sooooooo good. PLEASE, if you live in San Diego, or visit or whatever, go to TJ and get some tacos. Carne Asada’s always good, but its a consensus between the Mennonites that adovada can’t be beat. And if you can’t make it across the border for whatever reason, go down south to Chula or Southside or whatever and hit up Tacos El Gordo, which is TJ tacos @ US prices (1 for a buck vs. 3 for a $1! = KO! GGPO.)

After that mission, got back, and I wasted time. Mel said Patti was havin’ a get-together and was gonna roll, but she fell asleep.

So I did too (so I guess the “wow… sleeping early for a change” awymsg was still valid.

But of course Mel wakes up @ 1, calls me on the fone, and asks if I still wanna go.

An offer I couldn’t refuse.

So I went, met the Co-Op Crew, saw Tiff, Jose, Salo & Angelica, Patti (of course), Eric (con mujeres), Angelo, and who am I forgetting…

I just chilled on the balcony with the Co-Op & Tiff; Dana gave some interesting sermons bout ucsd politics and the co-ops. I could tell he was passionate about his shit; speaking with force and conviction about the urge to punch VC Watson in the stomach.

Tiff was cool as always: I really felt like you were tryin’ to get to know me better, thanks for askin me how I’ve been. I know I wasn’t too responsive, but someday, we’ll sit down and talk, like that time in….TJ

… the connections are uncanny!

ZackAttack

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I’m right here chillin’ at Fernando’s once again. It’s his b-day; he’s 20 years old. Wish him a happy b-day!

Anyway, a lotta shit has changed since I put this site up and left it to stagnate.

For those not in the know, I live in Rancho Penasquitos now, 20 minutes from school. It may be a far drive (but not as far as you think, it’s like 6 min from Ferny’s), but damn is it worth it.

PLACE IS FUCKING HUGE.

Its a nice 2-story deal that houses Melanie Natividad, Susie Parras, Tidiane Diallo, Arash Haile, myself, and Ken xxx.

A lotta ya’ll may know the first 4 people, but dunno who Ken is.
Ken is another story.

With all those people, there’s still room to spare too!

But yeah, we got the hook up with an in-house studio courtesy of Arash, a jacuzzi (indoors even), a weight room (soon to be converted to THE SPOT), and get this, a patio with a canyon view. Sunsets are amazing each and every day. Hell, it even came with a couple of couches, a fridge, washer/dryer and (possiblymaybe) a big screen tv.

But that’s just the house in general. Head upstairs and to the right and you got my room. Lemme just say that the BATHROOM is bigger than the room I was living at in Mira Mesa. And I got a patio and a tub. NICE.

But enough about the house. I’m sure everyone who knew about it are tired of the “Mennonite Mansion Mob” goin on and on about it.

Call me up and come vist though!

Speaking of which, my phone hella broke on me. Everything worked EXCEPT the menu button. For those of you with Nokias, its the one that you push to unlock your phone, go into the menu, check missed calls and messages, etc etc. Basically, my phone became 50% disfunctional because of one little button. Which brings me to my pont. I gotta new one, but since that button doesn’t work, I can’t see a lotta the #’s I had on it. I would suppose you all know the drill…

Let’s see what else has changed…

Oh, I’m officially single again. Yeah, even though me and Adry “broke up” back when school ended, we pretty much hung exclusively with each other. Bridge comes and goes though, and Adry finds herself diggin YA black/island boy again, hahaha. I’ve yet to meet David, but the fool’s gotta be cool.

So expect a return of the “blah blah blah i wanna girl” type posts that I mocked round this time last year.

Stuff 2 Talk about Next Time
Bridge
Roommates

Oh, Some things don’t change though: I’m still undeclared.

Street Fighter Alpha 3 for GBA

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A couple of weeks ago I picked up this game at Sam’s Club. Only set me back $13.95… hence the impulse buy. Normally, I wouldn’t have touched the thing, because as I have experienced through Street Fighter II Turbo Revival (fucking Capcom… and their names), playing a six button game with 4 buttons is pretty crappy indeed (not to mention the literal game-BREAKING glitches). To my amazement though, SFA3 is a solid cart.

I gotta give props to Crawfish, who are responsible for this GBA port. All of the original Alpha 3 fighters are in here, complete with DJ, Fei Long and the others from the console ports. New to the scene are Yun, Maki & Eagle, taken from CvS2, bringing the total fighters to 36 (and Shin Akuma/Bison). With all of their moves left intact, the gameplay is pretty much identical to the home versions…

On the subject of the newest characters, Yun’s palmstrike and Eagles “batter-up” move don’t negate/reflect projectiles (but Yun’s move is now hella fast, even comboable). His shoulder move and lv.3 super launchers can be flipped out of (mk one can still be jumpcancelled), making them pretty stupid, and x-ism worthless. On the plus side, they all also have hella priority on their moves.

There are a few other differences between this version and the home ports. For one, there’s no world tour mode. Ism+’s are earned through the Final Battle mode instead. There are only like 3 or 4 stages and songs, and a lot of the voices are gone (most missed is the announcer’s voice No more FACE IT STRAIGHT to signify the beginning of a match. Hell there’s not even a round 1 or 2, FIGHT, making it easy to get your ass kicked if you don’t pay attention). Some of the AI has been improved though (fucking Jun/Juli are sooooo fucking cheap since they can block now) Also, though this version professes to be an Upper port, it clearly isn’t (ie. DJ still kicks everyone’s top tier ass).

Like I said before though, this is a pretty amazing port. I highly suggest it if you had any interest in SFA3 at all, or want a solid pocket fighter. It won’t replace your console/arcade version, but it does its does its job of being playable & fun. Though the controls aren’t great, they’re way better than in Revival (you don’t need to press L+A at the EXACT same time) and as a bonus, you won’t render your cart useless if you beat the game like some other capcom gba fighter.

OMG MASE IS BACK

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GBA Flash Carts

Heh, I wanna know what happened to his preaching career.

Something cool’s happened to Vacaville. We now have a 24hr Fast Food Joint! Tho it may be McD (ehhhhhhhh), now the bored teens and YAs of vtown actually have something to do past 11p (even tho its only getting fries).

Anyway, my intern-sister Susie Parras gave me a ring today. She was wondering if she was gonna see me around pre-training, as well as how I was doing and all that mess. Heh… it sounds stupid but I really miss her. She’s pretty much the person I’ve gotten closest to during my stint at OASIS, even though most all we do is fake argue/fight, and when we do sit down and have conversations with each other, its normally complete nonsense. I miss my never-there-bro too. He’s such a kind person, and his voice gives me a “everything’s gonna be ok” kinda aura.

It’s hard to explain, but I’m sure most every bridger/OASISer has similar feelings about their peers. Or maybe its just called friendship.

Anyway, about that cheesy site I linked to. I dropped 300 on a (wait I already talked about this). Anyway, I have to fax them my ID so the order can go through. Even though Imma need a PC to get this shit started, hopefully it’ll be worth it. It’ll be my first big purchase since the clearing out of my goodies, so it had BETTER be good.

Here at home, I feel hella unproductive. Hell, the most productive thing I do on most days is work on this website, which no one can see anyway. In abscence of writing in a journal, I blog. Fair enough. But anyway, yeah. All I do is sit at home and rot. Tomorrow I supposed to chill with the Fume Hood Posse of yore, namely, Dan “The MAN” Laury, Bryan “Napalm” Tracy, and perhaps the other 2 members. I should also contact Kyle “Super Wafter” Masterson, John “Baby D” Tice, Jason “Doctor Claw” Tjalsma and call Ryan “Ah Lyon Ah” Lee and tell him about the startling McD and Mase developments.

THIS JUST IN
I’m watching late night BET, and there’s this vid called “White Girls” (to the tune of White Lines). Its like a Girls Gone Wild wanna be, stupid stupid stupid. Its funny though. Mighty Casey. Now its an equally stupid video, “Flap Your Wings” by Nelly fucking get your eagle on? c’mon… (And I can’t even enjoy the hot girls b/c I don’t wanna look at hot girls right now. I WANT a hot girl right now (aha.) And I’ve noticed hella ppl ripping lines from the Bluborious F.A.T. everyone from Fat Joe (that’s ok, they’re bluborious breathren) to nelly to Lil’ Jon, to anyone.
OK!

Well… this post was supposed to be hella short cuz I’m trying to go to sleep before the sun starts coming up. Time to pop some pills and drink a tall glass… ITS BECAUSE OF MY TOOTHACHE, I’M SERIOUS! (DON’T MAKE ME HAVE TO MILKBOX YOU!!!)

Oh yeah I gotta check out a song called 16 by ____, some bay/sac group. It uses the fucking Imperial March as a beat. To quote the SFA3 announcer, “THAT’S ENOUGH, UNBEATABLE!!!”