Sensitivity

So, I've been reading Penny Arcade for a long time. Not since the very beginning, but I've been following it off and on for years.

And then there was this comic. Warning, if you click that link you will find a rape joke.

Frankly it's blue humor in the same vein as lots of stuff they've done before. I thought it was funny. I still do, though now I feel guilty about it. Apparently a lot of people found it really offensive and wrote in to complain. The PA guys were less than sympathetic because, as they pointed out in a blog post, this isn't new humor to their strip. Then they did a follow up strip here.

That second one did actually bother me. I didn't think it was funny. But even though it offended me, I didn't dwell on it particularly.

But then today I stumbled on this blog post, at a site called Shakesville that is pretty cool. The thing is, the author is correct about our culture, about the fact that this one rape joke does not exist in a vacuum, etc (just read her post, it's good and I'm not gonna rehash it here). Also thinking about it, how do justify defending yourself for making an offensive joke by mentioning that you've made lots of similar jokes?

I've never really subscribed to that weird theory that stuff like South Park is somehow not offensive because they strive to offend everyone equally. Less is more, but more is never less.

But here's my real dilemma. I consider myself to be conscientious about various civil and human rights issues. But I also like Penny Arcade, at least most of the time. And it's not just PA. I have watched and enjoyed Family Guy, South Park, Drawn Together and plenty of other really reprehensible and entirely offensive shows. Now there are some episodes of all of those that I won't watch because they are too gross, violent, or offensive (usually a combination of all three) but I still watch the new ones. Maybe it's because with their scattershot approach to humor and that striving to be as offensive as possible, the odds are about 50/50 that I'll agree with whatever tack they've taken today. Making fun of organized religion? It's pretty likely I'm gonna laugh at that shit. Non-stop diarrhea and vomit? Yeah, I'm probably gonna change the channel as soon as it becomes apparent that this is a running gag. So I keep watching.

But here's the thing, I watch these shows and I know that what I'm seeing, even as I'm laughing at it, is offensive. It's racist, it's homophobic, it's sexist, these are jokes that I would never ever make. But I have this little brother. He's a teenager. Actually he's almost not a teenager anymore. He's going off to college this fall. And he makes repeats the shit he hears on South Park. The last time we were in Vegas he had just seen the episode of South Park where Cartman gets HIV and whenever he's asked a question he answers along the lines of, "Am I sure? I'm HIV positive."

So we're in Las Vegas at...the Mirage, standing in line to see a drag show (because my family loves drag), and he keeps repeating this joke. I am hissing at him trying frantically to get him to shut the hell up. I said, "Look I don't have the time to fully explain to you why that joke is particularly inappropriate at this venue, you just need to take my word for it and stop." Didn't do much good.

He and his teenage friends are constantly making racist, sexist, and homophobic jokes all the time, and god forbid I should take offense. To be fair, they are teenagers. Teenagers are stupid. Also I'm the big sister, and he knows this shit bugs me, and it's in his genes to bug me as much as possible. But I worry that he really doesn't get it. Maybe he really doesn't understand how damaging this kind of humor is, and maybe it's my fault. I watch this stuff and laugh and he watches it with me. There's a caveat in my brain that says that outside the context of this show this stuff is wrong. If someone came up to me on the street and made a comment anything like the average gag line in an episode of South Park I would let them have it. But in the comfort of my own home I laugh.

Do I have a moral obligation to stop watching these shows, stop reading this comic, stop consuming stuff that is only funny because it is self-admittedly as offensive as possible? I've occasionally referred to these shows as a "guilty pleasure." But today it's too guilty.

Ergonomics

Somebody at the AM forum asked a question about setting up their workspace so as not to give themselves carpal tunnel. This post is a copy of the reply I'm posting there. It's largely an excuse to post the stick figure illustration I made to help people figure out my back stretch directions.

At my last school I had an instructor who insisted that we get up and stretch every 15 minutes. Keep your back straight, both feet flat on the floor. Make sure your monitor is at eye level so you don't have to hunch or bend your head. Mine isn't adjustable so its propped up on a stack of books. Keep your wrists straight while you're typing and mousing.

I don't know if anybody else does this, it might be just me, but when I'm using a tablet I tend to tighten my grip on the pen until my knuckles go white. Every now and then I need to give myself a shake and make myself relax.

I know a really good back stretch which I shall try to describe. You stand up straight with your shoulders back. Extend your arms back and flex your wrists at a 90 degree angle, palms down. Press back behind you with the heel of your hand (you're not actually pressing on anything, I just mean that to be illustrative of the gesture). Then twist your arms so your elbows face in, then out. Then roll your head on your neck in each direction.

This stretch flexes all the muscles in your hands, arms, back and neck and it feels really good. Fair warning, it occasionally makes me go light headed. I was worried my description would be confusing so I I did a stick figure of it which I have attached here.

Goldfish Shoals and Q&A of Awesome

So here, after a ridiculous delay is the scratch piece I did for that Humane Society Auction back in April. It was a little hard to let this go actually since I spent hours and hours on it. I took white scratchboard, laid down several layers of color with oil pastels, and then scratched out these fish and all their ridiculous scaly details. Then I went back in with water color pens (ok, crayola washable markers, but real water color pens are like $3 each!) to get the washed effects on the fish.

This image came from a song lyric from the Red Dwarf theme song (which is an awesome show, btw), "I long to lie far away from here, drinking fresh mango juice, goldfish shoals nibbling on my toes, fun fun fun in the sun sun sun." Ok, it definately loses something in the translation to text but I love the line about goldfish shoals.

I have two more pieces of scratchboard (actually 3 if I want to dig that one out of the garage) and I want to come up with some equally great projects for them. Maybe a portrait of my chickens...

Actually that's not bad. One of the other pieces I submitted to the auction was an ink drawing of a pair of my roosters. One of them is my mother's favorite but I'm getting rid of him because he's a little jerk, and she is endlessly complaining that I gave that drawing away. And her birthday is next month. So that's one project down.

Oh right, I was going to mention the Q&A for Animation Mentor (which is frankly not a very good name for a school, but I get what they were going for). Anyway the Q&A was really great. It was a web conference session where we were all chatting and the people who were asking questions got pulled up on webcam so we could meet them. Only a few people in our group asked questions (including me!) but everyone was really cool. I made numerous snarky asides in the chat part, and I hope I didn't come off as an attention whore. But it was all the sort of obnoxious (hopefully) witty shit I would have said to whoever I was sitting next to if the whole thing were happening in an auditorium.

If you hate people talking during movies/presentations, never sit next to me. But I was paying attention the whole time!

Futurama: Proposition Infinity

"You wouldn't know perversion if it put clamps on your testicles."

Best quote ever.

Also George Takei. "I'm hugging him in spirit. Now he's hugging me back! Oh my."

George Takei is made of awesome.

So anyway, I just finished watching this week's NEW EPISODE OF FUTURAMA!!!1!!

And it was all about Pride! and to a lesser extent, Canada Day!

I was sad at the beginning when SPOILER!!


Kiff and Amy break up for no reason. Which made me sad. But then SPOILER!! They get back together at the end after a hilarious pro gay marriage commentary. I love when Bender goes to a camp run by the robot preacher to learn not to be robosexual anymore. Then he and Amy go to Gearwich Village Pride to campaign for equality in marriage legislation. Hedonism Bot is there in bondage gear. And it's amazing. Just like real Pride, which I was actually able to go to this year.

Seattle Pride was great (even though the parade was like 3 hours long). We saw a bunch of Dykes on Bikes and a lot of scantily clad people in body glitter shaking it on floats, and at the end a giant Flying Spaghetti Monster float with an entourage of sexy sexy pirates.

The most awesome thing by far was the group of baby Loggers (Loggers being the mascot of my Alma Mater, ALL MY LIFE I WANNA BE A LOGGER! HACK HACK! CHOP CHOP! Yes that's our school chant, and yes it's kind of disturbing, especially with the slashing hand gestures). But when I was at UPS we always had a tiny group of like six people marching. There were plenty of queer people at the school who would have marched, it's just that Pride takes place after the end of the school year and almost nobody was around because they were home for summer. This year the baby Loggers (as I somewhat patronizingly call them) actually dressed up like loggers in plaid shirts, suspenders, short shorts, and stompy boots. When they came near our little cluster of alumni and heard us HACK HACK, CHOP CHOP back at them they gestured for us to come march with them. I was sooo close to taking off and skipping the rest of the parade but I didn't want to ditch the friends I was watching the parade with. Alas, maybe next year.

Anyway, Pride and Futurama: two good things that go great together!

Pride and

Toy Story 3 was Awesome, also chickens and other miscellany

So I am opening up my student profile on the Animation Mentor website. This blog is listed as my website. So I need to post something that makes me sound cool. Oh no! Too late!

But Toy Story 3 was pretty awesome. I especially liked the part towards the end. If you've seen it, you know the part. If you haven't I won't spoil it. Except to say that to children of the right (wrong?) age it is potentially as traumatizing as Bambi. It was quite upsetting.

Was not actually super crazy about the very end, because I know a little something about being a college student who is over attached to childhood toys, but even I thought Andy was acting a little weird. But it's ok, because I was super crazy about pretty much the entire rest of the film. Sadly, I missed the first half of Night and Day (we thought the show was a 4:45 but it was at 4:35, we were actually trying to get there early, damnation) which makes me a little sad, but it's not like I can't see it again.

In other chicken related news, Captain Falcon is (well was) sitting again this time on a nest of her own beautiful blue eggs! I am letting her hatch them (but seriously, no more chicks this year!) because I love her blue eggs and want more hens laying them. With my luck all the chicks will be roos. But since she was only sitting for a couple days when another hen decided to go broody and instead of sharing the clutch (like the last pair of hens I had who went broody, which was super cute) she just kicked Captain Falcon off the nest. I am actually fine with this because this hen (nameless I'm afraid) is ind of more of a badass that the good Captain and I think she'll be a better momma.

But the babies! Captain Falcon's babies ended up being named Captain Planet, Spock, and Yum Yum (Yum Yum is my gorgeous favorite and I'm 98% she's a girl. If she's not I will be devastated). There are three new babies (the ones with two mommies) and they don't have names. Probably won't until their gender becomes more apparent. But I know Captain Kirk is their dad, so something to keep in mind. But anyway, Captain Falcon's babies! I need more Falcon names. Obviously the first one that leaped to mind was Millennium because I am a nerd. The second was Peregrine. That's probably enough names for now. Once again, mustn't count them before they hatch and all that.

In other news, I really want to get a new job and think "I could waitress or whatever," then I remember that the reason I got this job was because it comes with health insurance. Curse you American health care system! But I had an eye appointment last week and ordered some new glasses which I am very excited about. My current glasses are several years old and the frames are scratched to hell and back. These new ones will be made of delicate filaments of TITANIUM, which obviously is awesome. And even though I am paying kind of a lot for them I would be paying twice as much without in-sewer-ants.

And really, seriously, truly, Intrepid Space Heroes installment 1 is nearly here.

Basil of Baker Street

So I applied and was accepted to Animation Mentor. So, cool.

I've been reading a lot of Sherlock Holmes lately, and thinking about character animation. I was thinking all day at work about The Great Mouse Detective. For those of you who missed out, it's Sherlock Holmes, but with mice, basically. Also there are robots.

And of course Basil didn't have a cocaine addiction. Although I believe that he did smoke a pipe.

Basil of Baker Street had to be so much fun to animate. He's such a kinetic, over the top character. Expressive and hyper, and he does crazy things like blast throw pillows with his pistol and then gasp in despair when he fails to gain evidence against the Eeeville Professor Rattigan.

I did love that movie as a child. Especially the Big Ben scene with all the CGI gears that threaten to crush the main characters.

Manifesto

I am tired. Once again I feel like I am treading water. I'm working hard on my artwork in my spare time. I got some great anatomical reference material and I've been practicing figure drawing and working on Intrepid Space Heroes. I've finally got the first comic written, inked, and half painted in photoshop.

I'm not sure what to do about work though. I've spent the last few months working and getting certified as a CNA. I don't know that I've mentioned it explicitly before. Thing is, if I write about it a lot I'm sure I will commit a HIPA violation and that's not cool.

It's better than my previous jobs in that it's easy to be invested in the work even though I know it's not something that I want to do for the rest of my life. The people I work with are great (by which I mean the residents, not necessarily my coworkers), and most of the time I enjoy it.

But the coworkers.... Most of them are nice enough, and do a good job. But some of them are mean, just phoning it in, super bitchy complainers, or just otherwise make the workplace as unpleasant as possible.

Lately there has been a big political shitstorm around the place. The administration is newish and has been rather at odds with the small town mentality. Last year for instance they brought the hospital into compliance with a state law that forbids smoking on the hospital campus. People continue to complain. I continue not to have any sympathy for those people whatsoever.

But this new administration just fired the wrong person. An individual who is just generally unfit for their job (due largely to substance abuse issues, just who you want working at a hospital right?) but someone who somehow has the loyalty of the small town mentality behind them. So now the administration that was brought in to pull the district into compliance with the law (it was way out of compliance on several points, and there was some embezzling) is under fire, and my boss has been forced to resign.

The thing is, if the hospital board is seriously going to side against my boss and the administration she represents in favor of scumbag drug dealers (seriously) I don't think that it's a place that I want to continue to work.

So now I'm contemplating yet another job search. I am tired of this town. There are almost no people here my age, and I have nothing in common with those few. I am finding it increasingly frustrating to not be out. I'm not really in fear of negative repercussions or anything, the town isn't super homophobic, but I know that my work life is easier while I'm not out. And I don't feel any particular urge to share anything of myself with any of my coworkers. I feel very isolated.

I know I would be happier anywhere larger. Walla Walla would be an improvement. But I have loans to pay off from my time at the Art Institute, and if I quit the hospital I will have to pay them back for my CNA training. I actually have enough saved to do that now but it would encompass all my savings, and the thought of saving up two or three times that amount so that I could put down a deposit on an apartment is daunting.

At the same time, like I said, I feel like I am treading water. All my family is happy about my CNA certification because it is a "real job." And of course my 5 years of various art school have proved to be largely a waste of time. Not to knock my classic liberal arts education. I learned a lot of important things and that knowledge has value. I learned how to write and how to think analytically and I did get a lot of practice with actual art. If I did it again, I don't think I'd do that differently. But the fact remains that after those four years of school I was no more qualified for a career than I was before.

And even the Art Institute wasn't a complete waste. Some of my classes there were excellent. It was just that some of them were a waste of time. I'm a good enough student that I know when I'm learning and when I'm not. And the AI was charging tuition on par with a not quite Ivy League school. And the classes just weren't on par. At all.

I really loved the good parts of my classes at the Art Institute. The work never felt like work. All my assignments were fun and I was always excited about them. I can't even say that about my beloved liberal arts school. I was so sure that animation was where I wanted to be.

Quitting the AI was really hard to do. I felt like I was giving up on my dream even though I told myself I was just putting it on hold. Now, because of this shakedown at the hospital I am at another crossroads. My plan was to work there the requisite two years, save money, pay off my debts and then enroll in the online animation school Animation Mentor. The buzz when I was at AI was that it was a better school, where your teachers were all working in the industry at places like Pixar and Dreamworks. The tuition was low and it was completely online and that it had an excellent reputation in the industry.

Well that school is still there. I spent most of this afternoon looking at the website and it looks enormously appealing. It's an 18 month program and the tuition for the entire time is less than the one year I spent at the AI. You only take one class at a time and you have constant contact with your mentors and with the other students.

And I think, what am I waiting for? My debts aren't enormous, but making $9 an hour it's already going to take me years to pay them off. I could save up a bunch and move back to Portland, or I could stay here and hope that the work and the community that the school boasts that it fosters will be enough to make me content to stay where I am for 18 months. But 18 months is a doable time frame. It's better than the amorphous time frame it will take me to pay off my loans.

So I think what I will do now is look for a job with steady hours. I'm tired of being jerked around at my current place of employment. We are short staffed and since I'm not married and don't have kids they figure that it isn't important for me to have any kind of regular sleep schedule.

Besides, it's an online school. I can do it anywhere. I could apply right now and start with the winter classes.

The things I want are; a job that isn't too stressful, my own living space, the puppy that I'm already on the waiting list for, and this school. If I stay here I can have all these things. Hell I could apply at the school today and have until classes start to work out my job situation. I mean, I already have a full time job that pays reasonably well, it's just that the current climate sucks. It might get better. I'm not betting on it, but it might. I'm a little shy of this school turning out to be like the AI all over again, but they charge you as you go. So I wouldn't be out the full cost of the program if I decided not to keep going. And if I am still desperate to get away, I can still save up the extra to move.

So we will see.