Stuff I Should Have Been Blogging About, But Haven't, Part 1

Because I'm bad.....:(

Well, I'll be making up with a multitude of posts that I can complete in the dead of the night! That way, I'm at least somewhat active!

Comic-Con

Comic-Con went great. Am I going to create a huuuuuge creation about it this year like I did last year? No. Will I create a smaller version? Possibly. In the meantime, here is a slideshow of the majority of my pictures, with mini-comments.

Also, I was able to apologize to Randy Gallagos. If you don't know why, read this post, after the first sketch of me. Then read the comments. You'll understand. I needed to let that off my chest, so I walked up to Randy and apologized for my words. He accepted it, and now we're square. :)

My New Apartment

I might actually be creating a video tour of the apartment this weekend. In the meanwhile, here is a single picture of my room to whet you appetite.



Though note, there is currently a wonderful poster of a polar bear family in that blank spot on the wall.

More to come...

On Loyalty, Shirts, and Murders

In consumer behavior, I learned that there are four types of loyalty. You basically have a two-by-two matrix, where one axis is something akin to "relative attitude" (so, how much you like it) and the other axis is "repeated patronage" (how often you buy the product). The four types are:

No Loyalty (Non-Favorable View & Low Patronage): I have no loyalty to the MTV or BET stations.
Latent Loyalty (Favorable View & Low Patronage): I like nVidia video cards, but I don't buy them a lot, mainly because I don't need to.
Spurious Loyalty (Non-Favorable View & High Patronage): I dislike Apple, the iPod, and iTunes, but the time and effort it would take me to convert thousands of AAC files to MP3s makes me keep buying them. (Also applicable to monopolies, like old school Ma Bell.)
Loyalty: (Favorable View & High Patronage): I would say I'm pretty loyal to Nintendo products.

Really, the sweet spot for any company is pure loyalty, because not only will consumers purchase your products often, but when people are truly loyal, they will actually go out of their way to recommend you to their friends. It is a good day when a company achieves loyalty.

And I think a company has earned mine.

The company is called "Stranded." I've mentioned them before; I think they may be a branch of Target (to whom I also have high loyalty), because that seems to be the only place that carries them.

Why do I like them? A few reasons.

1. The shirts are soooo comfortable. I don't know what they do to the cotton, but they're so soft and nice, it's like you're wearing nothing at all. Yes, they're a bit on the thin side as far as shirts go, but that's the price you pay for comfort. (And it's not like they're transluscent or anything.)

2. The designs are badass yet classy. One of the main problem I see with a lot of graphic tees nowadays is that they are either funny and immature, or badass yet gang-member-making-you-look-like-one. Stranded tees are definitely, while definitely having a fierce side to them, still have an old-world style to them, which makes them seem quite classy. Just look at some of their shirts. They can make a koi fish look cool. That's pretty good.

3. They make crow shirts. I loves me some crow shirts. In fact, I just purchased my newest crow shirt when I was at Target this past weekend, prompting me to realize that I had become loyal. So, let's take a look at my crow shirts, shall we?

Oh, you'll notice I'm wearing my hat in all of these. No real reason. I just think the hat goes well with crow shirts.

If I'm not mistaken, this was my first crow shirt. Unfortuantely, it's dark-on-dark style make it had to see any crows on said crow shirt.

Here's a close-up of that las crow shirt, so you can better see the crows (and don't try to tell me that they're ravens. Even if they were, ravens are just a subspecies of crow).

Here's me with a brown crow shirt and a surprised look. Grandmother, what big eyes I have!

I really like this one. It has such a sense of transcendence about it. Plus, save for droppings and/or other apocalypse harbingers, you have to admit that it would be pretty cool to see a murder of crows descend from the clouds.

This is the crow shirt that I just purchased. Three interesting notes. First, it's a collared shirt, which I haven't worn (barring formal shirts) since high school. Second, this is actually a size small. A relatively big small, but a small nonetheless, so that felt cool. Third, you have no idea how I literally stopped the cart I was pushing around when I saw this in Target and said aloud "Crow shirt!" It was love at first sight.

Here's a closeup.

You may notice that three out of four of these crow shirts also feature trees (two of which are dead, one of which has a few scant leaves). Maybe this means I don't enjoy crow shirts, but rather dead tree shirts. Or perhaps this love of crow shirts is a throwback to my childhood, during which I would always since about three chartreuse buzzards sitting in a dead tree...except with crows...y'know, instead of buzzards...*cough*

Takeaway: I am now loyal to Stranded tees (go to Target and buy them!) and I've used "crow shirt" in this post 15 times.

Lucasfilm and the Presidio: Pictures!

So, I had my interview with Lucasfilm yesterday. I'll refrain from saying anything about it for the moment (aside from the fact that I overdressed), but I should find out by the end of the week whether or not I have the position, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed in a cautiously optimistic way.

In the meanwhile, I'll show you some pictures I took while at the place where I could potentially work! While this may not sound exciting, Lucasfilm is located at the San Francisco Presidio, which is, in a word, gorgeous. I had arrived early, so I walked around. I also walked around after the interview. I walked around quite a bit, taking in the scenery. These cell-phone pictures really don't do it justice. However, justice was never one of my strong points, so I'll show them anyway. Let's take a look.

The Presidio is a very green place. There are lots of trees. This tree was particularly large and interesting. And I also believe this is the first time I've gotten an honest-to-goodness lens flare in a photo.

More trees. The place was quite wide-open, as you can see. And although I'm completely ignorant about botany (by choice), I think those might be fairly robust Eucalyptus trees. Prove me wrong, science, prove me wrong!

So, this is one of the several buildings which encompass the Letterman Digital Arts Center, which houses the various branches of the Lucas Empire. While definitely modern on the inside, the outsides have a definite 1920s retro feel to them. This isn't the building that I would be working in, should I get the position, but it is the most red building, so that's worth something.

Okay, look at this picture and tell me with a straight face that your mind did not wander here.

Now, that is the building I would be working in, complete with an outdoor stream that seems to spring from nowhere. I wonder if there is something therapeutic about creeks and streams, because they always seem to make me feel better.

A pond mean to imitate celebrate the wetlands that used to exist in the Bay Area before it was all built up and industrialized.

I don't know, I just thought this was funny.

And this is the entrance to the main lobby. As you may be able to tell, there's a fountain there. And no, that's no munchkin on top, that's Yoda, whose not munckin nor elf, but an unknown tridactyl species. The Lucasfilm headquarters is actually pretty nice, because it allows people to come in and look, at least into the lobby. While that may not sound like much, the lobby is pretty decked out.

This, for example, was in the lobby. I'm not exactly sure who the guy is, but I'll hazard a guess and say he has something to do with King Kong.

Also in the lobby. A very nice statue of Boba Fett.

And this blurry fellow is, of course, Darth Vader. Compared with the Boba Fett costume, this one is actually somewhat disappointingly plain. And that heavily-padded codpiece has to go, Vader.

Betwixt the two villains is a cabinet filled with all sorts of knick-knacks, trophies, etc.

Shelves filled with the severed, shrunken heads of a number of characters. Somewhat disturbing.

And cute little figurines stand alongside books and Han Solo's blaster, which I never realized had a silencer before. Why a laser gun needs a silencer, I don't know.

Now, those shelves seem to house some classy books. For the most part, they seem to be dictionary's and hardcover books without the slipcovers. Honestly, I think this looks so much nicer than the modern personal library. Were I to become rich and have my own large house, I would decree that no book should be publicly viewable unless it had an "old-world" look to it.

This actually wasn't in the lobby, but in the belly of the building. It's one of the world's oldest film editing machines. There was plenty of stuff that seemed more interesting to take pictures of, but I took a picture of this because the recruiter I was speaking with told me I could. So, I did.

And finally, we have this blurry mess, in which I'm standing next to (and showing off my folder, for some reason) an actual suit of Stormtrooper armor from the original Star Wars movie. And here you can see how overdressed I was.

I blame Haas. I was told to dress in business casual. At Haas, that essentially means "Skip the tie; keep everything else." So, I arrive, snazzily dressed, and find that nobody else is wearing so much as a collared shirt. Hell, one of my interviewers was wearing a hoodie. Hopefully, they'll see me as some misguided youth rather than some business school prick.

Anyway, there you go. Pictures. I'll keep you updated as the week goes on!

Have You Ever Wondered What I Would Look Like if I Were a Pretentious Snob???

Well, wonder no more!

I'll see you at the next art gallery opening!

My Lightn'ed Hair

So, in response to people wanting to see what my apparently "strawberry blond" hair looks like...
We'll see how long it stays this way. There's still plenty of gel, and the ladies seem to like it, but I'm a fickle creature. Who knows, maybe next week, I'll have platinum blond hair! The next, an afro! The next, bald!

What is constant, though, is that anyone who runs their fingers through my hair (when it's not gelled) says its the silkiest hair they've ever felt. As one (slightly creepy) salonist said, "I'd love to have a shirt made out your hair." So if I do ever end up bald, you know where it went.

A Hairy Predicament (.....Sorry)

So, in the past couple days, I've been asked if I've died my hair. The following explanation has been cracking up my co-workers. Seriously, at least 3 of them laughed for more than 20 seconds (I counted). I think it's amusing, but not that funny. Anyway, I'll let you be the judge.

Anyone: "Andrew, have you died your hair?"

Me: 'Well kinda. You see, a while back I bought this new hair gel. It was called 'Lightning Gel' and I assumed that meant that quick-drying, because lightning's fast and it even had a picture of a lightning bolt and everything."

"However, about a week later I realized that something was wrong, and so I looked at the bottle again. I had apparently missed an apostrophe in the word. And so it wasn't 'Lightning Gel' but 'Lightn'ing Gel.'"

Them: *Cackle*

Me: -_-

So, yeah. Right now my hair is....well, it's been described as both "light auburn" to "practically redhead" (I think the auburn description is more apt).

Maybe, if I get some good pictures, I'll show you (maybe if you comment!).

Hats Off to You!

I mentioned the other day that I bought myself a new hat. This was much easier said than done. You see, my head, she's large. Very large. I measured it, and the circumference of my head is 25 1/4 inches. To give you an idea of how that stacks up with the rest of the crowd, the average head size for a human male is 58 cm, or 22.83" my head is nearly two-and-a-half inches larger than that. In fact, some guy says that "Probably the largest head size you will ever find, will be 64cms," while my head is 64.13 cm. I guess I owe this to my German heritage, because apparently that's where all the big heads come from.

Anyhoo, finding a hat that fits is very difficult. I looked online for a bunch of hats, but the majority are too small for someone like me. And the ones that do say XXL or XXXL are all sombreros or some such nonsense. Well, there were a few that looked interesting, but buying a hat is a delicate procedure. I don't think getting one online would be the optimal decision.

Postman: "Son, your hat from the Internet has arrived."
Me: "Golly! Thanks, sir!"
Postman: "Just doing me job!"
Me: "Hey, wait a minute, this hat doesn't look good on me."
Postman: "Hahahahahahahaaaaa!!!!" *Drives off, running down schoolchildren along the way.*

In order to avoid such a scenario, I went to the Berkeley Hat Company, the largest and most boringly-named hat store in California. When I went in, one of the service people placed a "fitter" hat on me. It basically rested on my head like a yarmulke. When she realized the immensity of my head, she looked like she was going to call the cops or something (which I actually think would make for a good skit).

Once they found some hats that did fit, I was basically left to my own devices for an hour and a half. While was originally looking through the whole place, I quickly gravitated toward the outdoorsy Outback hats. And after putting them on and taking them off again and again...and again, I finally purchased my new hat.






That's real kangaroo leather there. Very soft, very light, and very cool. Since purchasing this hat, it has already proven its value, having protected my face from Berkeley's blistering pre-summer sun (we almost got into the triple digits last week). It's also fully crushable, for easy storage.

As you can tell, the hat also has a lot of character to it. Well, you see, beginning this summer, I'm going to try a new look. Not a new personality, per se, just a different way of dressing, for a little variety. Stage one was buying the hat. Stage two is buying a leather jacket. Unfortunately, most leather jackets on sale are absurdly expensive, and eityher look like your homosexual, a biker, or a homosexual biker. That's not the look I'm going for, so I went to our good old friend eBay.

There ended up being two jackets I was looking at. One was what I really, really wanted, and the other was my backup (which unfortunately, ended earlier than the other one). To my dismay, the jacket that I really thought would work great ended up jumping in price to a point where, with shipping, it would cost me near to $100. So, I had to go with my second choice, for a much cheaper price.

So, I'll be wearing that second jacket with my hat. We'll see how it all works out.

Oh! I've thought of an idea for a show or something which features a guy named Sam who owns a hat like mine, except that it has magic powers? What can it do? What can't it do?!

Wife: "Oh, this kitchen is a mess! And all these dishes are dirty!"
Sam: "I'll wash the dishes...with my hat!"
*Sam points the hat at the dishes, and they instantly become clean.*

Security Guard: "Help! The bank's being robbed!"
Sam: "I'll stop him...with my hat!"
*Sam throws the hat at the robber, who is devoured by the hat.*

Crowd: "How can we ever thank you, Sam?"
Sam: "Oh, don't thank me...thank my hat!"
Guy with Old-Timey Radio Voice: "That hat's a true American hero!"
Some Fat Guy: "Three cheers for the hat!"
*A parade is held for the hat.*

Oh, yeah, and my hat's a lucky hat. Why? 'Cause I decided it would be.

Have a hatty day!

Through Tinted Glass...

I am a sunglass whore.

Wait, that's probably a bad way of putting it, much less starting a post. Rest assured, I don't give out sexual favors for sunglasses (or to sunglasses, for that matter). However, I do have an absurd amount of perfectly usable yet unused sunglasses, defunct only due to my desire for a new pair. I know someone who said that they haven't gotten a new pair of sunglasses in six years. My average rate, however, is about one every six months. These purchases tend to be around Christmas and my birthday (June 5th). What's more, I can spend anywhere from a half-hour to two hours to pick out the right pair. So, let me start again.

I am a sunglass connoisseur.

I wear sunglasses when it's sunny, I wear sunglasses when it's cloudy, I wear sunglasses when it's raining, and I occasionally wear sunglasses at night. However, I almost never wear them indoors. That's just improper.

As someone intimately connected with sunglasses, I have very specific tastes. The best sunglasses (and I use the superlative universally) have several qualitities:
1. Reflective Lenses
2. Ability to fit snugly betwixt my cheeks and the juts of my brow
3. Wide sides, so as to block all views of my eyes
4. Horizontally streamlined design.

Essentially, wraparound mirrorshades.

And then, of course, they need to be the right size, weight, and balance; they have to be at least 99% UV resistant, and they can't be scratched easily. Oh, and they have to look good, too. (Can you get an idea of why it can take me upwards of two hours to choose a pair?)

Now, I have very strong opinions of other styles of sunglasses...most of them less than enthusiastic. As it turns out, ironically, the two styles I like the least are the two most popular nowadays. For men, it's those aviator sunglasses (you can't tell by looking at your screen, but I just shuddered right now) which makes them look like some sort of corrupt Alabama sheriff. And for women, it's those...I don't know what the hell they're called, but they're those oversized plastic novelty sunglasses that look like they came out of a Cracker Jack box. They seem to be very popular with the celebritites, and just about every other female 15-30. Do none of them realize how ridiculous it looks? And I don't think it's a coincidence that both of these styles are especially big.

...Where was I going with this again...?

Oh, yes, that's right! I need would like a new pair of sunglasses. Not necessarily for daily wear, but to have for special occasions. Unfortunately, I can't find them easily or affordably. Why not? I've always been able to easily find my favorite style before. Well, it's because...they're not like my favorite style.

"How shocking!"

I don't know how to aptly describe them without sounding, well, evil. It's a style that's often associated with Germany, and ye olden evil Germany at that. If you've seen the movie Pan's Labyrinth, you've seen these sunglasses worn by the (evil) Spanish captain in the movie. Here's a tiny picture. Can you see them?

No? Well, I can't see them very well, either. In fact, I had a hard time getting a good real picture. However, I do have a couple picture from a (somewhat evil) cartoon character that helps you see them a bit better:















So I think that gives a good idea of the style. I looked all over the web for these types of sunglasses, but other than $150 vintage sunglasses, all I can find are John Lennon-style glasses. While the Lennon variety may be close in design, they lack the kickassery and upper lens brace of these babies. Plus, they remind me too much of hippies.

So what's a guy to do? I guess owning these "evil" sunglasses will just be a fantasy until a) I'm absurdly rich and can have them custom-made, or b) I get a gig in a movie where my character wears "evil" sunglasses, and the director, instead of giving the props away in a charity auction, feels that my acting skills were good enough that I should keep them as a memento.

Until then, I'll have to keep my sunglass whoring, er, connoisseuring in check.