Driving my red 2001 VW Beetle today to work I realized something that I never realized before. So here’s the scoop, I’m cruising down Highway 5, bumping a remix of OMD’s (Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark) enola gay, how ironic. This dude pulls aside me in the exact same car. I’m thinking, "Man what a fairy, he’s driving a girls car." That’s when it hits me, "I’m driving a girls car, I look so gay driving a beetle." I bet every chic that drives by thinks, "cute car, too bad he’s gay." Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with being gay.

I like to think of myself as the masculine cowboy type. You know the kind that drives a lifted truck or ropes his women like he does his cattle. The kind that knows he’s always right. The kind that can honestly say to his woman, "I only hit you because I love you." The kind of guy that has a woman that knows its her falt when I beat her. Well you get the idea, I want to be the manly type. Ok, ok, ok, about the beating and the hitting I’m not really that type, I just wish I was that type.

I honestly believe most girls want a mean guy that treats them bad. These types of guys are also some of the more insecure guys. Which girls also like because then they get to nurture them, which makes themselves feel better. Well that’s just what I’ve noticed. Oh yeah, I’ve also noticed that nice guys that have stable jobs and good looks always get cheated on by their wives. I think it’s the nurturing thing that leads women to leave their husbands for loser guys that work for minimum wage. What women really want is to be treated like crap. But not my woman, she gets treated like the princess she is.

oblivion77 @ 01:21 PM PST

Bought new shoes the other day and all I can say is they are so comfy. This is my second pair of Kenneth Cole shoes this year. I used to only wear Doc Martins when it came to comfortable shoes, but I must say these shoes are the most comfortable shoes I’ve worn so far. Honestly Doc Martens and converse still look cooler. But now that I’m getting to be an old man I don’t care if I don’t look cool, I rather just feel good.

oblivion77 @ 04:04 PM PST

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately, like I always do, just ask Diana. If Diana was a psychiatrist and was charging by the hour she would be a millionaire. Ok, back to me and my thinking. I’ve been having the hardest time getting over this idea that Chandra was the perfect girl. I realize now that it was me that made Chandra who she was. Everything from the Mary-Jane Doc Martins to knee-highs and plaid schoolgirl uniforms. The way she dressed, the way she cut her hair, even the music she listened to, it was all me. When I first met her I thought she was a typical wannabe surfer dork. I actually wasn’t at all attracted to her until she cut her hair short and dyed it burgundy, which I talked her into doing. That whole three years of dating I basically made her into my ideal dream girl.

It’s this thinking that I had at onetime a perfect girl that makes it so hard to get over. I just have the hardest time re-enforcing myself with the truth. I’m not in love with her at all; it’s the memories that I’m in love with. It’s the memories of when we were fifteen and still children. Part of me wishes I could go back and be a fifteen-year-old all over again. If I could be fifteen again I defiantly would have stayed away from sex. Well, I think I could have…actually I don’t think I could of…but I would have tried harder to stay away from it.

So I realize now that Chandra was really just everything I made her. Maybe the perfect girl really only exists within my head. With all this thinking I have a few options. [1] I can find another fifteen-year-old girl to turn into the perfect girl. Probably not the best idea…hmmm, I wonder if prison food is good? [2] I can force myself to believe I’m really just in love with myself. [3] I can just face up to the truth and realize that Chandra wasn’t the perfect girl. The past is the past and there is nothing I can change about that. The perfect girl thing was just a physical attraction thing. She didn’t have the cute little attitude or the perfect breasts to be my ideal dream girl.

There are actually four options, but the fourth one I very much dislike. [4] Try to convince myself the perfect dream girl really only exists in my head. I know the right one to go with and I just don’t want to believe it. I wrote once upon a time, “I would rather spend a lifetime searching for the perfect woman, never finding her. Than spend my whole life not believing she exists.” Man, now that I think about it that’s pretty lame. There is no such thing as the perfect woman nor is there such thing as a perfect man. I know that’s something a lot of us need to realize. Everyone has faults; you’re not going to be happier with someone else. We just have to take what we have and make it work.

I went ahead and added some pictures of the girl that I thought I made into my perfect little dream girl. I may have shared these with some of you, but for the others, here you go.

Pictures of Brian and Chandra, in chronological order.
[01] [02] [03] [04] [05] [06] 
[07] [08] [09] [10] [11] [12]

Pictures of Chandra, in chronological order.
[01] [02] [03]

oblivion77 @ 07:22 PM PST

Diana and I went out to one of our favorite clubs last night, Therapy. It was pretty fun but not as fun as it is when Chris is there. I must admit Diana looked really hot last night, but not as hot as me, lol!

Diana and Brian, what a cute couple!

oblivion77 @ 10:07 PM PST

Today was such a long day and so much walking. Diana and I took Brianna and Chandler to the comic-con and they had a blast. There were so many people dressed up in cool costumes. We just had to get our picture taken with Wolverine and Rogue .

If your wondering about the space.com t-shirt I?m wearing, "I?m not really a geek, honest!" I just ran out of clean t-shirts.

oblivion77 @ 09:48 PM PST

Today at one of the booths at comic-con this chick gave me a brochure for this supposedly cool site. Tonight when I got home I checked it out. All I can say is one word, “LAME!” I wonder if dangerman has anything to do with this site? But then again if dangerman had anything to do with this site at least it would look cool and the code would be clean.

Also part of this site was created with AOLpress/2.0, “what the heck is that?”

oblivion77 @ 09:28 PM PST

I’m going to see New Order live in concert! My x won tickets off the radio and I’m going. I haven’t seen New Order since 93 at Hollywood bowl. That concert so rocked, though they only played for like 45 minutes =(.

Here is the info:
----------------
Area: One
Sunday August 05
The Only Southern California Appearance!!!
featuring: Moby, Outkast, New Order, The Roots and more...
Plus... Billy Corgan has confirmed he will join New Order on stage at AREA: ONE...
Glen Helen Blockbuster Pavilion
----------------

I’m not sure what concert was best concert I ever went too, new order or the cure. I would probably have to say the cure because of the special concert they played for San Diego. There were probably only 600 people in total at the special appreciation concert that the cure played. They played that concert up in Irvine because the San Diego show got cancelled. I had third row seats for that concert so at first I was major bummed that they canceled it. But I got over it when Chandra and I got to be only three feet away from Robert Smith the whole two hours they played. I even got to talk with Robert Smith for a second.

So back to the New Order concert. I’ve been in love with new order since sixth grade (1989.) That’s also when I discovered Morrissey and The Cure. I went from skinny dorky little Mormon kid that had his mommy dress him, to cool kid with an attitude. So basically from that time on, I was one cool kid. I just listened to the new track from the new album, the track is called Crystal, its pretty cool. Peter Hook so kicks on bass, you can totally hear the faint cries of joy division when peter hook plays. This concert is so going to kick; I just can’t wait! I can’t!

oblivion77 @ 07:12 PM PST

Just watched the preview for Spiderman and wasn’t that impressed. I know I’ll still go and see it when it comes out because I’m way into comic things. I think the reason why I think the preview sucked was I’m comparing it to X-MEN. X-MEN is one of the coolest movies I’ve seen so far. X-MEN would have to be my all time favorite comic book, I’ve been collecting since I have been 14. I cant wait till Thursday, I’m going to Comic-Con, all 4 days =)

oblivion77 @ 08:49 PM PST

Today I got this hate email from a girl that used to be one of my best friends. I found her website last Thursday and read her whole journal that day. I actually enjoyed reading it because I could totally understand everything she is going through. I expected that one-day we would see each other in passing and smile saying hi. But never in my life did I expect to receive a hate email. Man, girls these days they are just so mean and un-ladylike.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Below is the result of your feedback form. It was submitted
on Wednesday, July 11, 2001 at 13:02:53

Questions & Comments: Well, Brian I've been contemplating this since Friday, and I just have to know.....Why are you reading my diary and why do you have me on your links list?
Do you want all your "kewl" internet friends knowing what a f--king a--hole you are? Why do you care what I write about? It's not that my diary is so secret and personal-as a matter of fact, there is nothing in it that I wouldn't say to your face. The fact of the matter is that you don't need to be privy to my life. I'm not your scandalous reading fodder. Oh! That's right, I forgot-you don't KNOW big words! Sh-t, you better go grab a dictionary before I confuse you!
At first, I just thought you'd read it and glean from it all of the "necessary information", but linking me? And even calling it cool, good and "interesting to read"? You're obsessive. And stupid.You must be pretty f--king sad and lonely to care that much. Just take me off of it. I don't want you or your creepy friends reading it. There's nothing for you to see here. No point in prolonging it or making anything worse, right? And if you don't remove me, I'll lock it up so you can't read it at all, bitch. And I just want you to know, you really should be happy.You got your wish. You wanted me to hate you,right? Well, guess what? I do.
P.S.
Your website sucks.
xox
Joslyn
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

This was a journal entry I wrote back when Joslyn told me she didn’t want to be my friend anymore. I never meant to hurt her feelings and I defiantly didn’t want to lose a friendship. Joslyn told me she never wanted to se me again so I did the gentleman thing and followed through with it.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
01-17-01
Last night was one of the hardest nights I’ve had to go through. I said goodbye to one of my best friends. She has always been there for me for everything. The thing is she fell in love with me and I loved her only as a friend. I guess it was just too hard for her to accept that I only liked her as a friend. So she made me say goodbye for the last time. Together we sat there on the corner of her bed crying our hearts out to each other; telling her I didn’t want to lose her as a friend.

There are so many memories that I’m going to have the hardest time letting go. She was the first friend that I opened up to. She knows things that I was too ashamed to tell anyone for 11 years. Even though it wasn’t my fault, it took her to help me realize it. So many nights she held me like a child as I cried in her arms. I understand how she feels because I felt the same way when Chandra left me. Chandra still wants to be friends but every time I see here I feel this great pain in my heart. One thing I have learned is you are better off with no friends. That way you never get hurt.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

As you can see I never wanted to end this friendship. I wanted to stay friends, but she had too many of her own tribulations to deal with. I really wish we could have stayed friends because she was so fun to hang out with. Maybe one day she will find the truth within and live by these ever so powerful words, "VNV (Victory Not Vengeance.)"

oblivion77 @ 05:26 PM PST

Well I decided to add the splash page I created when I first designed this site. Hope you all like it =) I also changed the menu around a little bit and I’m working on a new category. This last weekend was really fun, I felt sick on Friday so I just crashed and went to bed as soon as I got off work. Saturday I spent the day in Mexico and had a blast. I think I have decided that I want to move to Tijuana and buy/build a big house on top of the hill above the racetrack. Or I might just buy/build a house down on the beach in Rosarito, not sure yet.

Diana and I drove up to the top of this hill in Tijuana where all the big houses are and checked out houses. The houses there are so much cooler than all the houses here in San Diego. I guess that’s because there are no companies down there that build track homes. Also I think the architects are more creative and are not afraid to be different. I was told I could build or buy a house down there for half the price here. Also the price of most food and living is cheaper in Mexico.

Diana has a cousin that built a house right on the beach in Rosarito for only 150k. Do you know how nice that would be? To be able to walk out your front door and be on the beach. That would be the coolest. I figure once my stocks at Tachyon age a little, I’ll have enough to retire by the age of 30. I think that’s when I’ll move to Mexico. So for now good old San Diego will have to do.

oblivion77 @ 05:50 PM PST

If anyone does read this you might be wondering why I haven’t updated for the last week. Well this last week has totally sucked and I have just had not had the time to update. I have so much to update about and I just don’t know where to start. I guess I can start out with Monday morning. So here is what happens, I’m walking out the door on my way to work when I find a notice attached to my door. I open it up to find they are evicting me from my studio. I went to the management office and asked them why and they said because kids are not allowed at my place. First of all it says nowhere in my contract I signed about kids not being allowed. The only thing it said is that I cant have anyone over more than 10 consecutive days. My kids have only spent the night about 10 times and that was not consecutive.

So as you can see things are starting to suck. So I go to work and do the regular network stuff that I do. Now here’s were things get even worse. The head of marketing comes up to me at 5:00pm that night begging me to finish a project for her. The Project is a 21 page, full color brochure (technical overview) describing how our IP satellite system works. The project was supposed to be sent out that morning to our investors. I guess what happened is the lady that normally does all the print design just kind of said screw you to the Marketing Director. So here’s what happens, as soon as I get off work I drive thirty miles too pick up the zip disk from the design lady that supposedly had all the graphics in correct formats to be used.

So I get home and find out that the template that the lady made was in quark. I’ve never even seen quark before so I was like, “oh crap!” Luckily my partner Diana used quark for a few years when she ran the newspaper at San Diego State. So now it was in Diana’s hands to get this project finished by morning. The thing I didn’t know is how long page layout takes for print. Diana told me she used to average 2-3 pages in an 8-hour day at the newspaper. And 5 pages max during a rushed job. So I was like. “Oh man, there is 21 pages plus a cover and back cover.” So we ended up working in quark from 9:00pm to 10:00am. I was so tired and I still had to go to work and put in a 9 hours there.

So I drag my sleepy self into work and handed the finished project in to the head of marketing. That’s when she tells me that the brochure was supposed to be a .pdf file. I was like saying in my head, “what the hell? We just spent 13 hours finishing this brochure in quark for nothing!” Here’s the problem with this, quark can’t convert to pdf easily. First you have to convert it to eps (encapsulated postscript) and then to pdf and once you do that there are no changes to the text. If I had known she wanted it to be a pdf I would have just done it in illustrator. So she freaks out and calls the guy she works under, the CEO, and tells him its going to be sent out even later to the investors. The CEO them orders me to go home and fix it and have it ready with in the next hour. So I jet back to Diana’s house and start converting the quark file to eps (encapsulated postscript.) We finish doing that and then drive to my place because Diana doesn’t have Adobe Acrobat on her computer.

Now this is where things start sucking again, all the eps files that we just converted start getting incorrect parser errors and opened all funky. All the graphics that were in the brochure were corrupted and not displaying right. So I call the Marketing lady to inform her what’s going on and she starts yelling at me and saying all this rude stuff to Diana and I. By that time Diana was like tell her that we don’t want anything to do with this anymore. By this time its about 4:00pm Tuesday. The marketing lady calls back and tells me to stop what were doing and send everything back to her so she can have a real graphic designer finish the brochure. I was like ok, so I ftp all the files over my vpn connection to the server at work so she can send them to a so called “real graphic designer.”

30 minutes latter I get a call back from her begging for Diana and I to finish the project for her. I guess she realized when she called some of the other designers she knew. When they told her it would take them from 3-5 days to finish the brochure for her. So she tells us to take our time and just have it ready by Thursday morning. So after that I went straight to bed and slept for 12 hours only to wake up with the biggest migraine Wednesday morning. Thinking we only had a few hours of work on the brochure Diana and I didn’t start working on it till 9:00pm last night. That’s when the zip disk with all the graphics started displaying major funky. What we thought would be a 2-hour project ended up being a 9-hour project. The only part that cheered me up was the 4:30am jack-in-the-box run “you got to love those cheese sticks!” So we finally got the brochure working and emailed it to the marketing lady.

I get to work and find out the pdf wont open up due to some invalid image errors. I am so frick’n pissed off now. The marketing lady starts to yell at me again and threatens me with my job. Saying, “my jobs at stake if I don’t get this fixed with in the hour.” Once she said that I was about to do some hardcore ninja moves on her but I decided to just calm down and think of a way to fix it so it would work. I tried a few things and finally end up converting the pdf to a jpg in acrobat and then touched a few things up in PhotoShop. Well that finally worked and the brochure was finally finished. So I once again sent it to the marketing director and she sent it to the investors. Three days of hell and I still feel major stressed out.

If anyone actually got to this point and read this much I’m impressed. I’m still very much upset about this whole thing because I got blamed for everything when really it was the graphic designer ladies PC formatted disk. If only people would realize that PC’s were not meant for print. Don’t get me wrong I like PC’s, I would chose my Linux box any day over a Mac. But when it comes to print Macs are the tool to use. Diana I both agree that the PC formatted disk we got for the lady was corrupted. We believe this because the two of us have worked on so many projects together in quark, illustrator, PhotoShop, and acrobat and never had one problem. What really sucks is how the marketing lady still thinks its all our fault.

The thing is we put this thing together for her as a favor because here main designer walked out on her. I think the two of us deserve a lot of respect for the time we put into this. We put about 24 hours worth of work into this and if you double that, that is 48 man-hours. I want some respect for that and I cant even process the fact that she treated us that way. The part that pisses me off the most is the last thing she said to me. She told me to give her all the files so she could take it to a real graphic Design Company and get it printed. The thing is the quark file is already finished and there wont need to be any changes or corrections. I don’t know where she gets off saying, "were not real graphic designers."

It’s funny how when people don’t understand things they tend to blame other people. The Marketing Lady was at full blame. You cant expect to have something like a 21 page brochure be put together over night. I think we did a great job for having someone just give us a word document and a few image files at last minute. Maybe you’re wondering what this brochure ended up looking like? Well feel free to take a look and tell me what you think. Just remember to be nice with the comments, I wouldn’t want to break out some ninja moves on ya!

A few screen shots [cover] [intro page] [another page] [back cover]

The printed Quark files looks 100 times better and the only reason it looks blurry and messed up is because it was converted to a jpg.

oblivion77 @ 05:47 PM PST