Why, yes, I HAVE popped summin.

So, I have a question...




And no. It's not just for Halloween. I just didn't want to get any wigga results, feel meh?

Officially Freaking

Does anyone know what to make of this?

Alien. Has to be.

The Absolutely Nothing Things in Life

Ok, so I've been in my school's library from 3:15 pm to what is now 5:09 am. I should be writing my paper and studying for my ungodly hard art history exam since, after all, I have to be at work in 5 hours.

Still, I came across something that, honest to God, put me on THE MOON:

Last year, visiting artist/graphic designer, Daniel Eatock, came to our school to set up an exhibition at the Catherine J. Smith Gallery (you may think I'm being elaborate, but this has been a decent chunk of my paper these last four hours...). Part of what he included in his exhibit were what he called "Holley Portraits," named after a friend of his in college who created something similar that said something which resonated in Dan's mind enough to want to recreate it. Phew, I didn't even say that out loud and I'm tongue tied.

So what they had us newbie graphic designers do was make a thumb print, enlarge it to the size of our face/head, and then write our life story along the grooves. I remember seeing mine on the gallery wall, and even though everyone who made one could find it up there, it just so happened to be my birthday and that made MINE being up there much more special. Don't worry, I thanked him for this by saying, "Thank you SO much for choosing mine!!!!1111"

At that point, I had no idea that he put all of them up there. It happens.

BUT! in reference to the paper I am currently (or was currently) writing, I came across his website and look what I found:

My Holley Portrait! On his website! With everyone else's! But that's ok!

It's probably better quality if you view it from there: "Michelle Kammerhuber"

It says, "One day I realized that I am absolutely (x 6,000,000) nothing. And that is ok."






And it still is.

A Few Good Mentalities

I came across this article from the NYtimes.com by Michael Cieply about what he perceives as a lack of memorable movie lines from films post-1990. Amusingly enough (for me anyway) he mentions 2010's "The Social Network" which I not only JUST watched tonight with my brother, but kept thinking about while reading this article. CRAZY.

The movie, in my opinion, captured the sticky lawsuit issues surrounding Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, in a way that seemed appropriately desensationalized. Aside from a few expected elements of 21st century cinematic pizzazz (simultaneous bathroom stall hook-ups, anyone?), the movie, like Facebook, detaches from our experience by holding up that proverbial mirror. It begs to be observed at face-value (heh heh) by reminding us that in a homogenized social realm, real personality becomes a commodity.

With that being said, I found myself holding on to certain quotes as if they were rare moments of raw honesty, commodities compared to the dialogue-saturated movies so typical today. My favorite part was actually a line that Andrew Garfield's character said, and I'm paraphrasing:

"Yeah, I did get your 46 text messages...and I thought it was completely normal behavior." Lawl.

Perhaps the most sobering came from the ex-gf of Jesse Eisenberg's character:

"But you still blogged...like your thoughts are so smart it would be a crime not to share them."





Damn.

I'm still drunk

...from last night. Talk about EPIC fail:

according to the last person I legitimately called from my phone last night, I said that I "was in a bush." And I'm sure I was.

If I remember correctly, and I probably don't, I was on my way to see Grace Potter and the Nocturnals. Glad I didn't because that would have definitely been the third time I was kicked out of Legends.

Party Fail

Does it look like I give a ****?

I find the idea of creating a "party foul" a pretty absurd one. You can be having a relatively normal back and forth conversation with someone whilst shit-faced ("normal" aside from the fact that vocal volume goes up 75 decibels), but god forbid you knock a beer over because

ooooooh woah woah WOAH!!

Suddenly, you've actually proven that you were just THAT drunk...like the closed eyes and struggle for equilibrium not only didn't give it away, but were what? Becoming? Yeeaah.


The thing that really gets me is the way everyone will overcompensate for what happened before you, the party fouler, even have a chance to just say, "Sorry, man." See, to be frank, I've done a lot of rreeaalllly stupid things in my life while sober to actually give half a shit for spilling someone's beer while I'm drunk. In fact, yesterday, when this happened (yup, this is about me...did I forget to mention this?), the guy asked if I felt bad. HA! Nope. And I told him that.

If his friend would have stopped his fake laughing long enough, he may have heard me ask if he'd at least like me to buy him another beer.

Not like I really would have though.

What a bad Sowlllll

Stole this from my brother. Yeah, I know.





It's just that good.

Really Uncomfortable

I'm all for a good awkward moment...but MAN. What the hell is this?



Reporters can be such asses sometimes. I actually had to do the whole 'squinting the eyes/fingers in ears' deal.

Eh

Dino War:

Duke Lacrosse = Fail

The lacrosse team at Duke University can't seem to keep anything in their pants, and this time, for some of the players, it'll cause more embarrassment than a 2006 "did they rape the stripper" case. Karen Owen, a recent graduate, sent out a mass email to friends which included a fake thesis she dubbed, "Excelling in the Art of Horizontal Acedemics." The 42-page "thesis" included charts and graphs of, ahem, player performance, and--get this--actual names. This is ONE ruthless chick.

I don't mean to make light of the situation...who knows what those bar graphs were used to represent (*cough* penis size *cough*) and how humiliating they can potentially become? However, what really seems to have sparked from this debacle was a concern for internet privacy; the fact that many "young people" aren't educated enough about it. Um, no.

Listen, I'm no spring chicken. After attending two colleges, one of which had a nationally recognized basketball team, the other had football, I'll be the first to tell you that the majority of the players have rather inflated perceptions of themselves. I once took a couple of drunken hitchhikers to their apartment, finding out along the way that they were on the school football team. They seemed nice enough...until we got to their apartment which was infiltrated by other players (they all lived together, how cute.) Immidiately, they all ripped off their shirts (cuz that's what you do when you're on a football team, I guess) and began dry humping the two underage girls in attendance...all while showing off their crucifix tattoos and what not. The icing on the cake was when one of the players gave me his name to add him on Facebook, which I did but later found I was declined. You best believe that pissed me off...it's not like I had to stop on the side of the road and pick them up. It could be the girl-power in me, but I think Karen Owen had her reasons and I find it disgruntling to think the media would immidiately attack her, accusing her of ruining reputions.

Playa, please. So what? They'll just ruin her's?



Anyway, here's the story.

Ketamine

Man, I really want to become best friends with Kristen Lepore, frealz.

KIRboard Cat from Kirsten Lepore on Vimeo.

My Heart is on Fire

...and this always helps (special thanks to my friend, Jimmy ^_^ )

Story from North America from Kirsten Lepore on Vimeo.

Class is for _____.

I have a class at 2, but figure time could be better spent updating this. I mean, it could...

Plus, there are very few things that can brighten a dull day (despite the fact that the sun is out and it's actually warm...what's flipping wrong with me?!) like writing.

Just for the hell of it, I'm going to post pictures that are saved on this public computer. You wouldn't leave it if you didn't want it seen...





Man, I was hoping for more. Good thing this was actually a good one.

Ghosts

Since my brother went back to live at home, I've been staying by myself. Mind you, this is not the first time I have lived alone, but I'm starting to notice strange parallels that have been occuring from both experiences...from the other side.

Growing up, I always attributed paranormal encounters to simply my own mind doing what it did best: act screwy (anyone else just get an image of Elmer Fudd? Just me? K.) Like the time I woke up randomly at 3am to noticable, heavy breathing in my left ear and a draft that focused directly on my body. It was not as romantic as it sounds, but something my brain could be capable of, right? Amirite?

Fast forward about 8 years and I'm living in a make-shift, underground efficiency apartment that was probably built circa 1946. The green carpet had numerous stains that suggested it had either been around for more than 60 years, or a murder took place.

I mean, I'm just saying...

Mid-September of 2008, I came home to this apartment to find the bathroom door shut. My hairbrush was laying in the middle of the floor and I'm still not going to ask why. When I attempted to open the door though, there was a resistance pushing back. So, being the cool-under-pressure person that I am, I ran outside and had my friend bring a butcher knife over. Yeah, murders definitely took place at that apartment...no question.

As it turns out, the flimsy, plastic shelf that was taped to the wall had fallen ever-so-precariously that it wedged up and under the door knob. Well, OF COURSE.
These types of things are defying gravity every day.

So, I pushed that to the back of my mind until that summer when my friend, Sam, from Washington came to visit. After extensively studying Reiki (and without any previous knowledge of events going down in that hell hole of an apartment), she simply asked if I ever got a negative energy in that part of my room. As in, that EXACT area. I can't lie, I was freakin' out just a little. And by a little I mean it took 2 Ambiens a night to get me to stay there by myself ever since.

According to the Hollow Hill Ghosthunters' Guide, you can identify your ghost based on the types of clothes it wears . Sadly, this is the only evidence I have, and it's lacking clothes:



Creepy, right? The ghost is obviously bald which explains why the hairbrush was thrown out of the bathroom.

Anyway, since then, I have been experiencing weird things like that at my new apartment. I can't sleep because every single time I do, the screen door shutters. Could be the wind...which coincidentally comes right as I shut my eyes, and only then. The TV has been turning on and off by itself and when I asked the potential ghost to stop (yeah, I did that), it finally did. Therefore, I may have a cooperator on my hands and that's tolerable. I will try and post a video in another update that has footage I recorded one night. The audio is a little eerie.

Could it all be in my head?

Bwogging

I started this blog because it was something I had always wanted to do, not because I had much to say (obviously), but because it seemed like something I had to take advantage of in this day and age. Instantaneous communication, instantaneous everything. Who was I if I was not involved?

It's a shame, really, because my life could easily come off as really shallow. The nature of my blog posts, for example, offer nothing that most would consider "substantial." With that being said, blog posts that do seem to represent the ideal modern person. These are the people who think and conceptualize on this "instantaneous" level. They're able to read through the world and analyze it rapidly, relaying information that not only seems dense and significant, but quick and concise.

To quote Marshall McLuhan from 1964):
"Today, after more than a century of electric technology, we have extended our central nervous system itself in a global embrace, abolishing both space and time as far as our planet is concerned. Rapidly, we approach the final phase of the extensions of man--technological simulation of consciousness, when the creative process of knowing will be collectively and corporately extended to the whole of human society, much as we have already extended our senses and our nerves by the various media."

Baby talk will probably soon become binary. Don't quote me on this.

Anyway, it seems like the "cool kids" in society (albeit ones in a Western context) could easily be represented by the identity of a successful blogger. This is a very broad, generalized claim, but one that I don't mean to oversimplify. What I mean is that blogging is a medium all its own; the form of communication that exists within and beyond it is shaped by the nature of the Internet. Unfortunately (and I use this word empathetically), not everyone exists (or lives accordingly) on the Internet platform. There still exist people (my mom for one) who never made the seamless crossover from a mechanic to electronic way of living. The changes they see in society--or the world for that matter--seem only to have occured because "technology took over." Technology, for all intents and purposes, has been here all along; it simply advances when the desired scale of performance becomes larger. The imploding nature of the Internet--the idea that the world is made small again in relation to the computer screen--is overwhelming to people like my mom who still need to put a face with a name in order to consider it a credible source. Communication, therefore, becomes affected/infected.

My public speaking teacher who claims to have been born in the 19th century (yeah, I know) will not be shaken by the times. She gave us a pop quiz the other day that tested our ability to listen because according to her, we are "a generation of the worst listeners." Now, I'd like to think I'm an alright listener, but this test apparently proved otherwise. In my serious defense, the story was about some war that took place somewhere and it was all supposed to connect with the physical form of the letter "A." In other words, it was the most bullshit quiz I ever had to take and it would have been better served as a drinking game. Still, when she speaks, she thinks she's tranquilizing the room with her colorful words, quarantining a room full of brain dead youth. What she seemingly refuses to understand is that every person in that room is a listener, just a different kind. I hold nothing against her, perhaps the study of public speaking is becoming an ancient artform. There's really little need to study body language habits when so much interaction seems to exist digitally.

Still, I can't help but feel like I don't fit in.

For one, my blog posts (I'm pretty certain) are like my typical, every day dialogues: meaningless. I simply can't help but think that's the only way to be. With so much information shooting at us (television, websites, advertisements, other people talking, etc etc), selective hearing does not become so much an issue that needs to be fixed, but a form of filtering out as much as possible. As far as survival for our species, I believe it's important to retain what's necessary. Listen to the other side; our "enemies" are only misunderstood. That sort of thing.

Sure, I'm probably not taken seriously half the time, but I don't understand the point of making myself seem important when I know I'm just like everybody else. Why act like I'm either going to tell someone something they've never heard before (most likely impossible), or act like I'm hearing something I've never heard before (DEFINITELY impossible. Kidding, but, you know)?

When I mentioned the "cool kids" before, I meant this in the most admirable way possible. It is their ability to overlook the nature of the Internet, yet still find a way to communicate on it in a way that still speaks with sincerity and sensitivity. It could just be how we have been trained to read information, but the fact that some people are able to use this medium so effectively really makes me appreciate the nature. There's less pretension, less of a desire to come off as intelligent. The point is not to serve information, per se, but create the stage for interaction amongst readers. A good blogger is only there to shed light on anything, but leave it to the readers to finish the rest.

Now, getting back to the actual blogging part...
Updates coming soon. Promisemeanit.