JoeG's blog: "Joe_G speaks! (everyone flee..)"

Hey peoples! so it's definitely been awhile.. as in 2 years.. so I decided to check back here both to see what's going on with the site, who's still here and to shake my head at all of the old photos and blogs i've posted..

Anyways.. 2009 was quite possibly the worst year of my life. My grandfather passed away in January, his funeral was the day before my birthday (which I didn't end up celebrating.) my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer and it was nothing short of horrible and heartbreaking to watch her go through it ( I shaved my head when she was going through chemo so she wouldn't be the only one without hair in the family) but i'm happy to say she is doing fantastic now and is 100% cancer free. A week after she was diagnosed someone broke into our house and robbed us, took a lot of my mom's jewelery ( a lot of it sentimental ) they were never caught, i got laid off from my job, and my girlfriend stopped talking to me out of the blue of and on for about 3 months because she couldn't deal with me anymore or my problems, even texted my sis if she should break up with me. I beat her to it though ;) oh and the cat I had since I was 6 was hit by a car and killed. that was my 2009.

 

2010 .. I can't remember but definitely not as messed up as 2009 was lol. I did graduate with my associates degree scored a 3.7 GPA and made the dean's list!

This year is pretty blah. Like I said my mom is doing great. My sis however broke up with her fiancee who she dated for 4 years, met this troll a week later and then  moved out of the house and married the asshole after dating him for only 2 months in  a courthouse against my family's wishes. my mom only found out by text. She doesn't talk to us or her friends, she quit her job (the same shitty job I also have now..) by no call or show for 2 days, and that's pretty much the situation I'm dealing with now...

Met an awesome girl named Kelly she's awesome, funny, gorgeous, and all sorts of lovely. We've been dating for 6 months now. :)

I'm trying to get myself back into school to get my bachelors degree and hopefully land a graphic design job. (cross your fingers)

So what have you been up to?

Hi Fubarians...fubarbanites? Funan the fubarian? whatever. Anyways It's been ages and I'll briefly some up the past 3 or so months for you in lightning speed. 1. I'm still in school working to get my degree in graphic design I have 6 more courses to go. 2. Back to working at the zoo. I do guest services now as well as all their graphic design work. Hey, it's a job *shrugs* 3. I met an amazing girl, her name is Jackie and we've been together close to 4 months now. I've never been happier. She's lovely, beautiful, and just all around amazing. Her parents love me, her friends love me, and they all think her ex boyfriend was (is) a douche bag! GO ME! :D That's pretty much it I shall update more. So how the hell have you been? :)

Driving around the other day I saw something ridiculous. A guy walking with a girl and he had on this really dorky looking hoodie and a santa claus hat.  Of course when you see something as odd and colorful as this, you can't help but look.  He actually gave me the " tough guy" look. Like he was going to kick my ass or something.

I'm sorry. You will never look tough wearing this:



EVER! In fact, It looked like he broke into my sister's room when she was 8 years old and stole her pajamas. Once in awhile there's a trend or a style that comes out that makes you wonder, what the hell they were thinking?! Unless their goal was to make "gangsta" wanna be kids from the suburbs look like infants, then I totally support it.


 

I got home from school with this killer migraine, dad wanted to shoot some pool and we were going to watch the movie , Vulgar (crazy film produced by Kevin Smith). I get a call from my grand mom that we're going to Shady Maple ( A Smorgasbord, all you can eat buffet restaurant kinda thing in Amish country in PA.) Amish people, most of them anyway, do not believe in electricity or technology, they live in seclusion, and make handmade crafts and sell them, have huge beards (mostly the men) and wear very moderate clothing, and wake up early to work all day and worship. That's them in a nutshell. If that didn't help then go rent the movie, Witness with Harrison Ford! :D So I obliged her because I do want to spend time with them (apart from them ninja attacking every sunday) and they like taking me and Kate there. Kate had school and I was off that day. I did want to just stay home and relax. I had a busy week and I wanted to sleep a bit late but it would've been mean if I had said no. So they get here around 12:38 she apologized because she was running late. She was supposed to be here at 12 but ( GROSS WARNING) she had a hard time with her bowels this morning. Right.. I'll take her word for it. It's a long car ride and talking about how Hilary Clinton is an evil evil woman and deep in her heart she will be terrified if Hilary or Obama get elected and she doesn't like Giuliani either because he supports abortion and is for gun control (catches breath) is enough to put my nerves through electro shock therapy. We get there, I help my grandpop out of the car and my grandmom goes off to park. While I'm waiting I grab a quick smoke. There's a ton of hay and pumpkins out front so it's quite understandable for a no smoking sign to be there. I do get tempted to smoke near them wondering what would happen. Would the Hay catch on fire and would the elderly and the Amish moan and wave their hands in fear like Boris Karloff did in the mummy films? Who knows. A bus comes out and these elderly men and women who are immobile are all helped on to the bus. It's sad. They're absolutely miserable. They're arguing with the person helping them and each other. I finish my cig and sit next to my grandpop and whisper in his ear, " If I have to get on a bus like that, I want my wife to smother me with a pillow." I don't think I've heard my grand pop laugh that hard in a long time. He told my grandmom what I said and she said, " It comes around faster than you think!" " Yep" I replied, " That's why I smoke!" " Don't say that!" We get inside and I do what I usually do, I people watch. This was the Grim Reaper's waiting room. The young people who were there or mostly worked there were probably lobotomized. They had the personality of a young man in a 50's sitcom. ' Gee did you watch that ball game last night?" " Oh my goodness! They were awful!" BARFFFFF My selection of food was what was available and wasn't dried up or chewed by ans spit back into a heating tray by a previous patron. Pulled pork, broccoli, and buttered noodles it was! I will say the white chocolate raspberry cheesecake was quite awesome. Sitting back at the table my grand mom turned the conversation to politics again and gay marriage was brought up. She was opposed to it. Me: I don't have a problem with it. I really don't see what the big deal is. Grand Mom: You will some day. And It's against God's law! (That's the part where I wanted to stand up on the table and tell her I don't believe in God or any organized religion. But that's a car ride home that I do NOT want to endure unless I have a bottle of tequila and a hand gun with me. ) Grand Mom: It's unfair to the children. No child could grow up normal with two moms or two dads. I was about to argue back but I got cut off and she took the bible route. When the bible route is taken, there is nothing you can say to make the person change their mind. Not that I had a bad time with my grandparents today, but I would have had a better one if the conservative god fearing curtain didn't drop down every time we engaged in a friendly non political non religious conversation. We go down to the gift shop. It's full of... painted collectible cow statues, angels with huge creepy eyes, and various other weird...shit. The thing that did stop me in my tracks was a large display case of Christian t shirts: After that I had to get the fuck out of there. Especially after the Moutain Dew mock logo that said " Meant To Die for our sins!" *chills* So that was my day folks! Truly a smorgasbord of a blog if I do say so myself.

So after spending my saturday cleaning and reeking of bleach, I gave a call to Gamestop and asked if they were still accepting preorders on Halo 3. A woman answers the phone and... Store lady person: Hi....thanks for calling gamestop can I help you? Me: Yes hi, I was wondering if your store was still accepting preorders for Halo 3. Store lady person: You want what? Me: Preorders? Halo 3? Still accepting them? Store Lady person: yeah...just on standard edition..not on legendary...sorry... Me: That's fine. Oh, and I was wondering how much I could get if I traded in my PS2? Store lady person: is it a big one or a small one? Me: (confused) .... (looks inside pants) Oh, it's big. Store lady person: It's only gonna be $30... Me: Ok thanks! Store lady person: Bye (click) Head up there got a bag full of trade in goodies such as: A PS2, Tomb Raider Anniversary, Call of Duty 3, Rainbow Six Vegas, Dead Or Alive 4, Halo 2, The Darkness. I walk through the door and these two kids see me with the huge bag and they know I mean business. They immediately bolted out of the store as if it were a wild west film and Clint Eastwood stepped into the saloon to kick some ass! The store lady person I spoke to on the phone walks up and asks if I needed help. I said yes I have a ton of stuff to trade in towards Halo 3. She throws up (no not actually throws up, keep reading) her hand and snickers and says just wait a minute ok? She goes to the back room I'm looking around, Elmo from Sesame Street is playing on the tv. I'm thinking gee, she must be a big elmo fan! And out walks this other employee and he's holding a baby and bouncing her up and down and walking all around the store. She comes back and starts yelling at him that theres still some of the baby's stuff behind the counter and to not forget her diapers. She's scanning all my stuff and then she takes her time checking to see if my PS2 works. Now I was 100% confident it works but I still feel awkward and guilty. You ever feel weird when you're about to walk through one of those anti theft scanners near the exit? You know you didn't steal anything, yet you keep saying to yourself " God I hope this thing doesn't go off, Man I hope a DVD didn't jump into my jacket or anything that would be embarrassing!" So she checked it and it worked like a charm. She comes back totals up the stuff. She's still yelling at the other baby holding employee but he's ignoring her and she's just sighing and shaking her head and chewing some gum. she tells me my total and I tell her to put everything towards the game and she puts the rest of the store credit on a gift card. $72 in fact which is quite nice. She asks for my name, my birthday, and my phone number five times. After the 3rd time I started to feel like I was unsure of who I really was. Maybe my name isn't Joe Griffin? Maybe this is not my beautiful house? Maybe this is not my beautiful wife? How did I get here? Many good days goooooooo byyyy water flowing- ok i'll stop typing Talking Heads lyrics.. She puts everything on the computer prints out a receipt, takes my bag and tosses it at an overflowing trashcan full of Burger King and other fast food containers and papers laying all over the floor. She hands me the card and receipt and says , "see ya tuesday". Now usually the people who worked at the gamestop were always very friendly and if I preordered a special edition of a game and they didn't have it they would throw in something free. Like a poster or something. I have no idea who the hell these people were. Maybe they killed the nice people and then ate them? Those two working there just didn't fit in a video game store. I think a more fitting job for both of them would be to work in a gun shop down in some hill billy trailer park town in Arkansas or something. " goddang it Jethro! I told joo to not let the baby spit up on dem dere shell casings!" Yeah, I think that would work out better for both of them. She also reminded me of the Assistant to Mr. Skinner in Hot Fuzz. Paging misterrrrr skinnerrrrrrrrrrrr. So, Halo 3! Tuesday! Who's ready?! :P

School today!! YAYYYYY!!! *happy dances* I already know two people in my class and we're all loud mouths so class is gonna be fun to say the least lol. WISH ME LUCK! :D

Wow I'm such a slacker... Sometimes I get bit by the blog bug and I just go crazy posting and posting and posting, then I kinda stop for a couple of weeks. My apologies. Anyways, so lately the current going ons has been with the painting of the living room, dining room, next the hallway and the upstairs. The dining room walls above the chair rail have been painted a pale yellow color, and the walls below the chair wall are a spiffy mint green. As disagreeable as this may sound ( it did to me at first), it actually looks really really nice and not as if spokes people from Sprite just bought some paint and just went KAH-RAZY (crazy). If you prefer you could also say the following: Lemon Lime Gatorade , A cheap dish washing sponge, Comet soft scrub bleach cleanser. The living room is painted the same green color as I mentioned above. It's very interesting to stand behind where the windows are in the living room and look into the doorway entering the dining room. Everything works very nicely (to put it in simple terms and not long overdrawn technical graphic design student jargon). I actually hate painting and so does my dad. I'll openly admit that I'm not a neat person. Painting, requires you to be. You can put up all the masking tape you want, it's still a pain in the ass. Kate volunteered the other day to paint and it was her first time painting. She managed to accidentally bump the paint bucket with the ladder and it spilled all over the carpet. I tried cleaning it as best as I possibly could but no luck. I was cursing up a storm, throwing things around. The anger wasn't directed at her but the fact that the carpet cleaner machine wouldn't work for me, ran out of carpet cleanser, and just the fact that I hate painting. So I'm rinsing out the brushes and rollers and I lit up a cigarette and said: me: Hey Kate, you know what makes a cigarette taste really good? kate: What? me: Anger... Haven't started making a video for my new youtube channel yet. Just been too busy. Plus I really want to feel like creating something rather than make myself create something. I do have a few ideas though. I guess I just really want my first drawing in there to be special. Trying to decide on the subject of this drawing is becoming the difficult part. Before that was trying to figure out how I'm going to make it work and look good with just a webcam in my tiny ass bedroom. I'm pretty sure I have come up with a solution to this though. So if you have any suggestions on what I should draw for my first video on my new youtube channel, it would be highly encouraged and appreciated. Not something abstract...more like... draw such and such a person or thing, and I can work around it. School starts this coming wednesday! Woooooo!!! *happy dances*

So I've had this idea kicking around in my head for awhile now to start a new Youtube channel. I already have one but the videos in it are well.....well they're pretty retarded :) This channel will focus just on my artwork and the process of how it is created. So I'm thinking maybe start it off with an intro to what I'll be sketching any specific kinds of methods I'll be using, what medium, etc. Then comes the heart of the vid, the process. The camera will only be focussed on my hand and the drawing , and the footage will be sped up so it won't put you to sleep. I'll also have music playing in the background with the song selection having something to do with the theme of what I'm drawing. Was thinking about giving it a conclusion, more of me discussing the finished piece but that might be over doing it a bit. I think the intro and process are sufficient enough to work on it's own. So the name of the channel? Well it's a really cheesy name that's been sticking in my head for awhile, but it is a name that could grab interest. Plus I think it works great on the title of the vid. So I want to call the channel, Thatboycansketch. So in the title it will say That boy can sketch : a dog. That boy can sketch : George Bush giving Dick Cheney a lapdance. Get the idea now? To give you a sample of what this may look like: I need opinions! Like the name? Hate the name? Do you think anyone would find this interesting or entertaining? Would you subscribe to it? Let me know in comments please!

So today started out good. I was going to meet up with my friend colleen at the mall. On my way up to there, someone three cars ahead of me decided to make a right hand turn and signal at the last second. Everyone slams on their brakes to avoid hitting him and each other, including me. My brake pedal goes all the way down and the truck is not stopping. Luckily I kept pumping on the brakes and it stopped before I ran into the truck in front of me. The whole time riding up there and back my brakes felt weird. I told my dad about it a little later and not right away. He applied for a job as a furniture finisher ( which has been doing since he was 15 years old) and the company told him he was unqualified. They probably didn't even look at his resume. So to say the least he was pretty crushed about it. And later on proceeded to make me feel like shit about the whole truck situation when I did tell him. Which of course made me feel like shit the rest of the day. So this morning dad tells me the brake line in the truck is snapped and constantly leaks brake fluid. It's going to cost even more money than what we've already been putting into the goddamn thing. So the truck is pretty much unsafe to drive. This is really really bad as we can't afford to have it fixed. We can't sell it. And me and dad both need it for when he gets work again and for when I start school. He apologized for last night and told me it wasn't my fault and that he's just glad I'm still alive. *adds another crappy day to the calendar*

Feeling a bit blue today. I think it's because I want more out life. Maybe I haven't discovered what my self worth is, or what my purpose in life is. I know a lot of people haven't , but I don't want to be one of those people who grows old and bitter at everyone else because they lack what the other person has. Maybe I'm just down and that's the only thing that sticks in my head. What I do know is that I eventually want something for myself. I need some kind of substance. Which is probably why I keep going to school. I put something in it, and it gives something back to me. It's the feeling of accomplishment, discovery, and interaction with people who are on the same boat as me. I know to some students and professionals this may sound trivial but it means everything to me. I work hard at what I do and I enjoy it. Without that feeling I'm not myself. My problem is I lack motivation, I need to be pushed. It's always been my problem. Not just school but life in general. When I am pushed to do something, I work hard and I can do great things.I know a lot of people are proud of me, and that makes me feel good, but I keep feeling like something is missing or it's me who's missing out on something. "A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval". - Mark Twain I know when I do start school I'll be feeling a bit like myself again, but it's always going to be the irritating unanswered question in the back of my head