Since the appointment required me to travel over to “the city”, I decided to take advantage of the fact San Francisco has many more and many better food choices than Oakland or Berkeley combined and visit a small Japanese curry shop recommended by a friend. Japanese curry is a different style than what most Americans think of, usually relating to Indian styles…it’s not quite as rich or thick; perfect for my palate. I ordered it extra spicy and they totally delivered; you can probably make out some of the bright orange specks on the dish. I snapped a couple photos and had a lovely time trying to transfer them to my computer from my phone without the built-in bluetooth of my laptop.

Full circle.

Pity that posting to my own blog has come to feel more like a chore than when I first started it eight years ago. Of course this site has been around pre-blog for an additional five to six years, but somehow having more streamlined tools like Wordpress to ease the process of updating seems to have an inverse psychological effect where I’d rather wait until something big needs to happen or be posted instead of quickly publishing smaller things of less significance.

Speaking of big, it’s been awhile since the site has had a design refresh. I like the direction, but things need a little facelift. Look for that and some other creative work to be posted soon.

In the mean time, check out a couple panoramas from a visit home earlier this summer:

listening to:
Essential Best
Hiroko Yakushimaru

Check out the view from my new bedroom window (click to enlarge):

Polished off the final exam for my third semester of Japanese language last night… やった！

listening to:
Recovery
Eminem

took a little walk to the ocean the afternoon of valentine’s day, and noticed the sunset casting some really wild colours across the western edge of north america, especially as it tries hiding under some thinly laid haze.

A few panoramas, click to enlarge: Dusk at the lake home. Mother’s Day 2009 at the edge of the continent. Christmas 2009 under the chills.

It’s been a good two months since my last post; much of that time has been spent attending events like E3 in Los Angeles, working on personal projects, working to secure a job, and then deciding that I want to return to university life and improve my mind the old fashioned way—which has meant spending time researching programs and schools.

After having separated with my last job, which was fun, paid fairly well, came with almost unbeatable benefits, greatly grew my experience and creative diversity, and then moving literally halfway across the country during an economically depressed period of seven months afforded me plenty of time to evaluate a great number of things, the least of which were my available opportunities.

Those who have known me well enough over the past few years to have a frank discussion about my views of advertising, marketing, etc. know that I’m not exactly fond of perverting my creative talents to liberate consumers from their hard-earned cash and buy crap they either don’t really need or can’t really afford. It’s one thing to crave an audience; but its another to stage a crowd with smoke and mirrors while your business associates pick their pockets in their distracted state. I’ve been told that such an anti-entrepreneurial sentiment is the trademark of creative folk, but pardon me for having any sort of human conscience or ignoring the perceived importance of the almighty dollar.

Many people also know that for the past 3.5-4 years I’ve been volunteering countless hours on a popular gaming news and community web site. While it’s technically not paid a dime (yet), I have met countless wonderful people and it has opened doors to many new opportunities and horizons, many of which have roots here in the San Francisco area. During my months away from the workforce, I’ve had a chance to explore these options to a greater degree and have enjoyed it enough to consider officially working within the video game industry in some capacity. Many young people interested in games seem to be interested in pursuing a career in editorial capacities, which I can attest is a very exciting field, but not one that is likely to bear lifelong careers for anyone unless they have other skills that can be parlayed into much different roles within the industry, particularly in business or other managerial duties; things I have little interest in directly, so I will need to look deeper into the job well.

Last fall, my volunteer efforts with that gaming site landed me a very rare opportunity to travel with a game company to Japan, an experience that really opened my eyes in ways I could have never imagined. It’s one of those things you have to see or do for yourself to understand, not unlike parenthood—so I hear. Ten years ago I would have ignorantly written off most foreign cultures as bizarre, unnecessary, and irrelevant to my life and goals. For me, Japan specifically was perceived as a place of such other-worldly oddity that I could only laugh at the stereotypical wacky TV programmes and assign them as the single thumbnail of the whole country and its cultured history. As it turns out, that naivete has ironically become the defining factor in the goals I have now set for myself.

I am and will always be a creative person and a child at heart. Originally, my college education was intended to put me into a career making video games, albeit from a production standpoint versus creative, but it turns out my mind wanted a greater say in the matter than my technical skill with computers, and the trajectory toward being an Art Director/Designer was set. Does it mean I am tethered to a career in visual design? Nearly as long as I have loved drawing so too have I loved writing creatively, be it poetry, opinion/editorial, or just waste-basket lining such as these blog entries. All things considered, a career that could benefit from my experience with visual design, creative writing and my more recent interest in bridging cross-cultural gaps is the most appealing prize. As it turns out, the gaming industry is multi-national, so there’s hope that I can mix that experience into the dough as well.

What it means is that I have set my heart and mind upon this new horizon, and have begun taking the first steps toward that destination. An easy goal it is not, and the decision to leave behind many of the luxuries I have grown fond over the past ten years is equally difficult. It has taken me roughly half my life to get this far; it could very well take the other half to get back to this point when starting fresh with a whole new language and culture. But a life without goals, dreams and growth is not much of a life in my opinion, so it’s a task worth undertaking.

The question that remains is: am I crazier for essentially leaving behind what I’ve worked hard to achieve thus far, or for pursuing such a far-fetched and potentially imaginary treasure at the end of a transglobal rainbow? Status quo or dreams? Maybe it’s the creative soul inside, but impossible dreams are often the winner; they make me tick, and ticking is something I’m not quite ready to quit doing.

On a different note entirely, new art will be posted very soon!

listening to:
21st Century Breakdown
Green Day

I do have one other web-related project in the works, but I can’t really reveal any more about it yet; still in beta testing! Will work on getting some of my hand-drawn work scanned in soon too; been awhile since I’ve updated those…

listening to:
Icky Thump
The White Stripes

People have been asking me all day if I feel old. Not just older… but “old”. Some ask if I feel wiser. No more than yesterday. I think you gain many things with age; their sum worth more than whatever things you may lose along the way.

One thing I wouldn’t quite have dreamt even a year ago—let alone 30 of them—would be my eyes seeing the things I now see on a daily basis. Conveniently ignoring the social issues of homeless people and related, here are just a few things snapped while out and about over the last week. Enjoy!

thought of the day: my body is the most expensive vehicle i will ever ride in.

Above you’ll see a little CD album cover I put together this afternoon (click to enlarge). It’s for the band Baoquan, titled The Loss of Sleep. That’s all fine and dandy, except it’s not real; the band is fake, and the album is doubly non-existent. It’s just a fun little exercise paired with a sub-cultural internet meme. I thought it quite a larf until all the pieces came together in either the wildest of profound coincidences or the most meaningless nonsense I’ve posted since some of my high school poetry appeared on this very site.

As for real bands, many followers of popular music—or at least those who begrudgingly endure my interests as I foist them about—will know that U2’s new album, No Line on the Horizon, was released last week. Being my all-time favourite music-makers, it’s a momentous occasion for me; one that I embrace with nearly every waking thought in anticipation during the 2-3 months leading up to the street date.

Normally I am too pure of heart to even attempt listening to music from my choice bands before the release dates because the quality of such contraband is often an insult to both the bands’ efforts and my delicate/pretentious audiophile sensibilities, and also because as an artist, I respect the moment of unveiling; people cannot see my work until I’m damn good and ready to show it, so I grant the same courtesy to the two or three musical acts my conscience cannot transgress. However this time around I had access to a pristine, high-quality edition, and just couldn’t resist.

Maybe I jinxed it.

It turns out the first listen was bittersweet. The first couple tracks got me really enthused, but then it seemed to trail off into a confusing array of verses, bridges, and refrains like a plate of really loud spaghetti noodles. By the time I reached the end, all I could do was shift my eyes back and forth suspiciously and wonder if in fact what I’d just heard was even a legitimate copy of the album. It was completely legit. Seems that this album is ground-breaking in a whole new way for me, as U2 records go, insomuch that this time around, it’s one of those unfortunate albums that need to be heard a few times for things to sink in, whereas all their previous work has found me awestruck the first time through; it’s just not as immediately listenable.

U2 is a band whose heart is really in performing live. The trouble is that 30 years of touring have taken their toll on Bono’s voice… it’s not quite as flexible or flamboyant; it’s raspier and has lost some of its definition. instead of a range of blacks, whites and range of greys, it’s just the extremes. Normally, these are valuable qualities earned only with age and experience, but for most of Horizon, it seems Bono is using his stage voice for the studio recording. The difference is that on stage, you need to sing at a higher, louder register to project to a large, screaming audience, versus the tranquil acoustics of a studio that can afford softer melodies and performances. So for the first couple listens, instead of the sensitive nuances he’s known for, it sounds more like eleven tracks of him either yelling or tone speaking than actually singing.

The good news is that after about 5 complete listens, you start to make some sense out of the madness, much like immersion in a foreign land… after a short time, your brain begins finding patterns in the seemingly random chaos of the local language and things get a little clearer. For me, the weakest track is actually their premier single, “Get on your Boots”. It’s a rhapsody of about 6 disparate songs and styles all quilted into a single 3.5 minute ditty, and has a vibe reminiscent of the breakout single from their last album, “Vertigo”, which likely explains its choice as the radio thumbnail for the rest of the album, even though it doesn’t represent the other tracks at all; it’s something of a toe jutting from a hand while the other fingers tolerate its curious presence. For me, the strongest song is the title track, planted firmly at the beginning. Speaking of which, it’s been about 25 years since they’ve titled an album to match a song it contains, with one exception; just an interesting observation.

A tough call; I DO like the new album, and I’m not really disappointed, but at the same time—as a geeked out lifelong fan—it pains me to find such obvious critiques. Regardless, I’ll keep listening and memorise each detail right up to the moment of attending a show on their next tour, at which point, I’ll be yelling singing it all right back at the band along with waves of other fans from the sweaty sea of general admission.

listening to:
No Line On The Horizon [Limited Edition]
U2