If my calculations are correct, when this baby hits 88 miles per hour... you're gonna see some serious shit

*****forwarning this is one of those really pathetic whiney blogs i do where i bitch about my life. feel free to skip past the text to the art at the bottom.*****

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I'm going to quote one of my older posts here because I think it illustrates how predictable fate has become.
In my post where I was talking about how I got hired I said:

"Things are, and no doubt I am damning myself to jinx it all by saying but, things are indeed looking up."

I said this because each time something good happens to me, its usually a sign that something awful is just around the bend. How right I was.

My glasses are 6 years old. I have had them since I was 17. And as the years have passed, so of course has my prescription. I cant see things that are very faraway. I cant read road signs until I am just passing them. But its alright. I can live with that.
What people wont tell you is, after a long time, lenses decay. They flake. From morning til night for the last 3 years or so, my glasses have had large blobs on the lenses. Blobs where the film has peeled off. At first it was just 1, and it was ok, despite it being right in the middle of my line of sight.
But as time has marched on, more pieces have flaked off. So I cant see out of the left lens anymore.
Its a mass of white pseudo-transparent blobs that skew, distort, and block my vision on the left hand side.
But, like many things, I have coped with it.
But it's started to affect my animating and art. I have to tilt my head at odd angles to see what I'm doing. So, I decided to bite the bullet and go and get a new prescription. Not new frames. Way too much.
So, I got there expecting to pay probably a decent sum. But not what I was expecting. After waiting two hours I finally got to go into the clinic and they performed the usual eye tests. And then it was time to pay for the eye exam.
64 bucks. Thats not TOO much. Its alot, but its not going to kill me. So, I figure thats it. But no. I have to pay for the lenses (despite them not being made yet) right after paying for the exam.
I start to sweat. I can feel my stomach growing nauseous.
As the bill starts to print out, I can feel the hairs on my neck stand up. I know what the probably outcome will be.

76 dollars. Oh no. There's no way I have enough on my bank account. I pray silently to a man who isn't there that the machine will charge my card as credit and not debit. Shaking slightly I hand her my card and she slides it through the machine. I can see the pc screen.
Processing....

processing....

denied.

She hands me back the card. I grin and say "try entering it manually. there's a hole in the magnetic strip"
Now by this point a small line had formed of other people needing to pay for their lenses. She types. She hits enter.
Denied.
She looks at me, brow furrowed. Every line of her face saying what all the impatient people in line must have been feeling.
So.
The time had come to do something I'd hope I'd never have to do. I called my father.
He came over. Gave me the money. And then silently we started to drive home.
And as expected the conversation came to why I dont have money.
And so I told him how I left school. How I've been paying a ridiculous amount of loan money every month. How my job doesnt pay much and my new online job hasn't payed me yet.

And now he gets upset.
Because all this time, despite me never having amounted to anything, he's assumed I've been successful. That I've been making enough for myself to live comfortably. That I had my Degree.
And so the conversation takes a turn like it always does as to how he's been thinking of me as someone to fall back on in case things get bad. In case he cant afford my greedy mother's alimony and loses his house. In case he cant afford to bail my brother out again. And how I'm just like my brother without a penny to my name.

All stuff I knew of course. But stuff I didnt want him to know. He has enough horrible things to worry about, and now I've made it all far worse, simply by trying to get myself a new pair of glasses.

Which I will pick up from the clinic tomorrow.

Now he pities me.
My father pities me. And even offered to help me.
There's a sort of sadness in his voice. I think he realizes now fully that our whole family has basically flushed down the toilet in the last decade.

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That same night a fellow contacted me on aim. I wont say who he is. He probably reads this blog. But then he's probably too busy being a success to do so. He's talked to me before. He and I met when a media site I'm a member of tried to produce a DVD. The point of this DVD was to have shorts of various animators all together for people to watch. Each short exemplifying that artists style and ideals.
But this guy had other plans.
He said and I quote:

"i have no interest in your films. could you make something episodic and funny, like Family Guy?"

I ignored him after that. The project fell through anyway. And he disappeared for roughly a year.
Only to pop up again later and pester me about how things are going. He cant remember who I am. ever.

"how are things?"
"same as always"
"i forget who is this again?"
"zekeyspaceylizard"
"oh"

But thats fine. I cant remember all the people on my aim list either. And I converse with him for a while, or at least until he starts bragging about the power he wields.

Anyway, the night of the incident with the glasses, he contacts me.
Once again, not knowing who I am. And then asks me if I'd like to make for him, for free, some cartoon series idea. Each episode being 5-10 minutes long.
5-10 minutes is ALOT of time. And noone in their right mind would do that for free unless it was a personal project.
So I tell him no. And he asks what I'm working on these days. And I list all the various projects I'm involved in. He takes special interest in the flash game me and Billy Monks are working on. (games are a big business online these days).
"do you need any help programming?"
"no we haven't had a hiccup...yet"

So he proceeds to tell me about how he has a team of programmers and graphic designers and waits for me to gush about how impressed I am. I sent that bitch a smilie face. Bitches love smilie faces.

Eventually he asks me how we are marketing the game. I tell him honestly that me and Billy are going to get a sponsorship probably from Armor Games so that when the game is done, we can pocket a thousand or so dollars.
And now the guy is ticked off. And wants to know why we wont let him help, and saying that me and Billy should go to Hollywood where he can hook us up with some "REAL PROGRAMMERS" because I guess Billy doesn't count.
And he asks "why are you keeping it between the two of you when you could do SO MUCH MORE?"

And I flat out told him: "So we can control the content."

After about a half hour of silence he said "I see." and signed off.

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I would like to say this is the only time things like this have happened to me.
But thats not true.
why just tonight I dealt with an equally amusing event.
A fellow I've known for years contacts me. He's had this band with another friend, and as of late they've been begging me to make them a music video. A video in which I'd be able to stretch my creative muscle and do what I want.
Wary, I agreed to think about it. So they sent me some MP3's.
Now this fellow hangs out on a forum I go to, and is notorious for being untrustworthy. But he's always been kind to me, so I gave the songs a listen. And one in particular stood out to me. it was beautiful. one of the prettiest songs I ever heard.
and it made my imagination dance.
And so, I planned out the video.
And I sent it to this guy. It takes him about a second to look at it (not nearly enough to read all the things I had typed) and says "no. this is what i want you to do"

and proceeds to describe a concept similar to mine but with all the whimsical silly stuff taken out, replaced by an emo kid being mopey. Bland.
And this guy has known me long enough to know what sort of things I make. So I ask him why on earth did he contact me to make this in the first place.
And then I asked him how much he planned to pay me to make this video (which I should add he wanted me to make in stunning award-winning quality animation. his words not mine.)
I wont say, but it was a laughable amount.
About the same amount a casual person spends in a few days.

it reminded me why I dont do commissions. I remember long ago on deviantart, making a journal proclaiming "i will make art for money" with the only rule being nothing indecent.

i got a few dozen requests for various types of porn.

Thats why I'm glad I found Billy. He and I operate on the same wavelength.
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I'm not the only one with a run of bad luck as of late.

Famed animator Richard Williams (author of the Animators Survival Kit) was having a seminar in New York today. My friend Bug has been looking forward to it for quite a while. And so today he traveled from New Jersey to New York eagerly looking forward to meet one of his idols (and mine).

And they wouldn't let him in. It was sold out. They wouldn't even let him sit on the floor. Williams is old. He wont be around much longer. So Bug wasted a bunch of money and had to wander around New York instead of meeting Richard Williams.

Meanwhile, on the same site Bug and I put cartoons on, a different person who has spent all his life copying the art style of sailor moon and making video game parodies managed to get in and see Richard Williams. And now boasts about it.

That disgusts me in ways I cannot describe.

Especially considering this guy hasn't had to work hard a day in his life and the website is constantly giving him handouts and pays for his animation school which hasn't helped him one bit.

Thats just....not right.

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anyway.
i think i wrote enough sad shit today.


here's some stuff thats GOOD, kinda


Madness day has passed on Newgrounds
and I made a cartoon for it.
Check it out here
I threw it together really fast in 2 nights. You can tell which parts I spent time on and which parts I rushed. I am pretty pleased with it. It contains the laziest walk cycle I ever did do.

Also I made a new painting that I am very pleased with.



I suppose the best part of things these days is that, one of my goals this year was to accomplish SOMETHING before I turned 23.

I turn 23 in 6 days.
And I did it. I wasnt expecting it, but I did it. I got my foot in the door in this dying industry before I turned 23.
And hey, I finished a new short cartoon.

Something I havent done for a while.

And the scree parrots went away. And I can sleep-in once again in peace.

And now I am going to watch some things on my youtube favorites list and go to sleep.