I am trying to move my 'Deviant Artists I Admire' list into my labels list, so I thought a good way to do that would submit a post on each artist. So here goes : )

Delurianne is an extremely talented artist. She is great with details, and my favourite pictures of hers are probably those inspired from her novel, "The Cradle of Whispers". Some of her pieces are rather morbid, but beautiful all the same. I love the Victorian influences and the spidery details. Definitely check out her DA gallery - it's full of goodies : )

So I was reading something today on human gene patenting. You say what?!? That's right - idiot people think that they can patent our genes and that it is 'constitutional'. This is ridiculous. I think that it shouldn't be allowed. This is one of those things I do not like about organized society. I have absolutely no problem about a law that says that you can't kill someone or you shouldn't steal from someone - they create a good sort of order. But there are laws and rules that I think go a little far. It makes me think about way back when, when there weren't laws and rules and ridiculous things you had to do for the greater population like car tag fines (don't get me started). I think there are some things people do just because they can and I feel that this gene patenting thing is one of them. It is the human body - it's been around a hell of a lot longer than any of these scientists or whoever else is 'patenting' genes. I would seriously love it if one of the patenters came up to me and demanded to use the genes of mine that are patented. Let's see how far their proof of patent gets them when it's just them and me and I don't know, my mace.

idk just awesome ...

The Only Candy a Man Should Eat

Candy that's juicy, quiet, and rumored to be made from dead horses (even the orange ones)
By Chris Jones
Men eat candy because we eat without thinking, but that's not to say we don't think about the candy we eat. Jelly beans? Reaganite. Skittles? See you at the parade. But jujubes — jujubes are the perfect combination of adult authority and childish delight. (By the way, adults call them joo-joobs, not joo-joo-bees. You want to fight about it?) People whine about some of them being made from dead horses — not the American, movie-theater brand, but the generic ones in Canada, where I do most of my snacking — but they don't know the jujube eater's darkest secret: By consuming dead horses we're taking their power and virility and making it our own. Eating jujubes is like eating powdered rhino horn or seal penis without any of the messy sociopolitical ramifications or bureaucratic hassle. Look! It's just candy! But the truth is, it's a stealthy, dangerous candy — a candy with a challenging, knowing texture; a candy that interrupts its fruity buffet with the occasional bracing blast of licorice; a candy that can be eaten in pin-drop quiet, no crunch, no rustle, and thus without recrimination from wives or healthniks. No, you feckless alfalfa heathens, we'll hide away in our dimmest corners, in our man-dens and basements, and we'll eat our jujubes — our joo-joobs — in determined silence, growing ever stronger, until one day we will rise with the thunder of a thousand of those same dead horses, our bellies hard-packed with their souls and gelatin and our teeth stained by their blood, and we will trample your pesticide-free fields, an army of raging stallions once again.

Orange ones are my favorite.

CLICK HERE for more of Esquire's How to Eat Like a Man!

Read more: http://www.esquire.com/features/recipes-for-men/man-food/man-candy-0909#ixzz0OVdtg5DW

things for me to do ...

• sort out labels
• compile deviant artists i admire into the labels area
• make up my damn mind on the colour scheme
• order up the living room
• live to see the other side of my comp and lang class
  

ten things for guys to think about

So every once in a while, Esquire does a feature on 'Ten Things You Don't Know About Women', and I was going through and reading them and thought I would do one of my own. Then as I was writing them out, I seemed to realize that they weren't really things men probably didn't know as much as they were just comments or 'here's what you should do's. So here we go.

• If she takes the time to tell you she hates your Axe deoderant/bodywash/shower gel, she most certainly does - try some Old Spice, it reminds us of elegant gentlemen who like to get dirty : )
• We really don't care about your pornographic interests as long as you aren't indulging yourself without permission in front of us - seriously.
• Just because we dream about guys like Gerard or Sam or Hugh does not mean we don't think you're as sexy as them.
• When we bare our feelings, don't give us antidotes - act like a woman and give us comfort.
• You do one thing until the wedding - give us the money and get the hell out of our way.
• Yes, we do want you to love us like Johnny Depp in Don Juan DeMarco.
• Neat nails, yes - manicures, no.
• We may not 'talk' all the time, but eventually we do, and word will get around.
• Learn our sizes and always keep the receipt.
• If we need to eat healthy and lose weight one moment, then want a box of star crunches the next, don't point it out. You will be the newest source of our newely deflated self esteem.
  

just fucking awesome, idk ... xD

steven gained weight: from alexi wasser on Vimeo.

i got distracted and read this - it's really ... awesome.

December 31, 2001, 11:00 PM

What I've Learned: Michael Wright

At 8:48 on the morning of September 11, Michael Wright was a thirty-year-old account executive working on the eighty-first floor of the World Trade Center. Two hours later, he was something else. The story of his escape is the fastest 3,863 words you will ever read.

By Cal Fussman

Up to that day, I'd had a Brady Bunch, cookie-cutter, beautiful life. I now know what it's like to have a 110-story building that's been hit by a 767 come down on my head. For better or for worse, it's part of my life. There are things I never thought I'd know that I now know.

It was as mundane a morning as you can imagine. Tuesdays are usually the days I go out to see clients and make sales calls. I get to my office at a quarter to eight, eat a bran muffin, drink a cup of coffee, and get my head straight for the day.

I was actually in a good mood. A couple of us were yukking it up in the men's room. We'd just started sharing the eighty-first floor of 1 World Trade Center with Bank of America, and they'd put up a sign telling everyone to keep the bathroom clean. "Look at this," one of us said. "They move in and now they're giving us shit." It was about quarter to nine.

All of a sudden, there was the shift of an earthquake. People ask, "Did you hear a boom?" No. The way I can best describe it is that every joint in the building jolted. You ever been in a big old house when a gust of wind comes through and you hear all the posts creak? Picture that creaking being not a matter of inches but of feet. We all got knocked off balance. One guy burst out of a stall buttoning up his pants, saying, "What the fuck?" The flex caused the marble walls in the bathroom to crack.

You're thinking, Gas main. It was so percussive, so close. I opened the bathroom door, looked outside, and saw fire.

There was screaming. One of my coworkers, Alicia, was trapped in the women's room next door. The doorjamb had folded in on itself and sealed the door shut. This guy Art and another guy started kicking the shit out of the door, and they finally got her out.

There was a huge crack in the floor of the hallway that was about half a football field long, and the elevator bank by my office was completely blown out. If I'd walked over, I could've looked all the way down. Chunks of material that had been part of the wall were in flames all over the floor. Smoke was everywhere.

I knew where the stairs were because a couple of guys from my office used to smoke butts there. I started screaming, "Out! Out! Out!" The managers were trying to keep people calm and orderly, and here I was screaming, "The stairs! The stairs!"

We got to the stairwell, and people were in various states. Some were in shock; some were crying. We started filing down in two rows, fire-drill style. I'd left my cell phone at my desk, but my coworkers had theirs. I tried my wife twenty times but couldn't get through. Jenny had gone up to Boston with her mother and grandmother and was staying with my family. Our son was with her. Ben's six months old. It was impossible to reach them.

The thing that kept us calm on the stairs was the thought that what happened couldn't possibly happen. The building could not come down. After a while, as we made our way down, we started to lighten up. Yeah, we knew something bad had happened, but a fire doesn't worry you as much when you're thirty floors below it. I even made an off-color joke to my buddy Ryan. The intent was for only Ryan to hear, but things quieted down just as I said it, so everyone heard. I said, "Ryan, hold me."

He said, "Mike...I didn't know."

I said, "Well, we're all going to die, might as well tell you."

Some people were laughing, but not the guy in front of me. "I really think you should keep that humor down!" he said. I felt lousy. In hindsight, he may have known more than I did. Even though I'd seen physical damage, what I can't stress enough is how naive I was at that point.

Some floors we'd cruise down; others we'd wait for ten minutes. People were speculating, "Was it a bomb?" But we were all getting out. I didn't think I was going to die.

At the fortieth floor, we started coming in contact with firemen. They were saying, "C'mon, down you go! Don't worry, it's safe below." Most of them were stone-faced. Looking back, there were some frightened firemen.

When we got below the thirtieth floor, they started to bring down injured people from flights above. There was a guy with the back of his shirt burned off, a little burn on his shoulder. One woman had severe burns on her face.

We got down to the twentieth floor and a fireman said, "Does anyone know CPR?" I'm no longer certified, but I know it from college. That was ten years ago. You wouldn't want me on an EMT team, but if it comes down to saving somebody, I know how.

So me and this other guy volunteer. We helped this one heavy, older man who came down huffing and puffing, and we kept our eyes out for anyone else. "Do you need help? Do you need help?" Nobody needed help. The stairway became wide-open. It was time to go. The other guy took off in front of me. We were going pretty fast.

Have you ever been to the World Trade Center? There's a mezzanine level, then you go downstairs, which is subterranean, into this big mall. Our stairwell exited out onto that mezzanine level. At that point, I could look out across the plaza at 2 World Trade Center. That's when I realized the gravity of what had happened. I saw dead bodies everywhere, and none that I saw were intact. It was hard to tell how many. Fifty maybe? I scanned for a second and then focused on the head of a young woman with some meat on it. I remember my hand coming up in front of my face to block the sight. Then I took off. As I ran, people were coming out of another stairwell. I stopped and said, "Don't look outside! Don't look outside!" The windows were stained with blood. Someone who'd jumped had fallen very close to the building.

It felt like my head was going to blow up.

I made it to the stairwell and got down. The mall was in bad shape. It must have been from chunks of the plane coming down. Windows were smashed. Sprinklers were on.

I saw Alicia, the coworker who'd been trapped in the bathroom. She'd seen what I'd seen in the plaza and was traumatized. She was crying and moving slowly. I put my arm around her. Then there was another woman -- same thing. I put my arm around the two of them, saying, "C'mon. We gotta go. We gotta go."

We were moving through the mall toward the escalator that would take us back up to street level and out to Church Street. There were some emergency workers giving us the "head this way" sign. I think they were trying to get us as far away from the fire as possible and out toward Church Street and the Millenium Hilton hotel.

I got to the bottom of the escalator, and that's when I heard what sounded like a crack. That was the beginning of it. I ran to the top of the escalator as fast as I could and looked east, out toward Church Street at the Millenium hotel. The windows of the hotel are like a mirror, and in the reflection I saw Tower Two coming down.

How do you describe the sound of a 110-story building coming down directly above you? It sounded like what it was: a deafening tidal wave of building material coming down on my head. It appeared to be falling on the street directly where I was headed.

I turned to run back into the building. It was the instinctual thing to do. You're thinking, If you stay outside, you're running into it. If you go inside, it might not land there. So I turned and ran into the building, down into the mall, and that's when it hit. I dove to the ground, screaming at the top of my lungs, "Oh, no! Oh, no! Jenny and Ben! Jenny and Ben!" It wasn't a very creative response, but it was the only thing I could say. I was gonna die.

The explosion was extreme, the noise impossible to describe. I started crying. It's hard for me to imagine now that when I was on the ground awaiting my doom, hearing that noise, thousands of people were dying. That noise is a noise thousands of people heard when they died.

When it hit, everything went instantly black. You know how a little kid packs a pail of sand at the beach? That's what it was like in my mouth, my nose, my ears, my eyes -- everything packed with debris. I spat it out. I puked, mostly out of horror. I felt myself: Am I intact? Can I move? I was all there. There was moaning. People were hurt and crying all around me.

Then I had my second reckoning with death. I'm alive, yeah. But I'm trapped beneath whatever fell on top of me and this place is filled with smoke and dust. This is how I'm gonna die -- and this was worse. Because I was going to be cognizant of my death. I was going to be trapped in a hole and it was going to fill with smoke and they were going to find me like one of those guys buried in Pompeii.

I sat there thinking of my wife and son again. It wasn't like seeing the photos of Jenny and Ben that I had on my desk, though. The images I had were of them without me. Images of knowing that I'd never touch them again. As I sat there, thinking of them, I suddenly got this presence of mind: I gotta try to survive.

I tore off my shirt and wrapped it around my mouth and nose to keep some of the smoke out. I started crawling. It was absolutely pitch-black. I had no idea where I was crawling to, but I had to keep trying. It's haunting to think about it now.

I saw a light go on. I can't say I was happy, because I was horrified, but that light was hope.

Luckily, I was buried with a fireman. I got over to him and stuck to this guy like a sticky burr on a bear's ass. He was frazzled, but he had it a lot more together than I did. I was like, "What are we gonna do?" You can't imagine the ability to have rational thought at that point. I was purely in survival mode. It wasn't like, The smoke is traveling this way, so I'll go that way to the fresh air. It's whatever presents itself.

The fireman looked like a big Irish guy. Big, bushy mustache. He had an axe. He was looking at a wall, and it looked solid, but when he wiped his hand on it, it was glass, a glass wall looking into a Borders bookstore. There was a door right next to it. He smashed the door and it spread open.

Everyone gravitated to the light. Now there was a bunch of us. People were screaming. We got into Borders, went upstairs, and got through the doors heading outside. The dust was so thick, there was barely any light.

At this point, I still had no idea what was going on. I didn't know if we were being bombed or what. I didn't know if this was over or if it was just beginning.

I took off into the cloud. I crossed Church Street, and some light started coming in, and I could see a little bit. I saw a woman standing there, horrified, crying, lost. I stopped and said, "Are you okay? Are you okay?" She couldn't speak. I kept going.

I went along Vesey Street, using it as a guide. It started clearing up more and more, and I got to an intersection that was completely empty. That's where I saw one of the weirdest things -- a cameraman near a van with the NBC peacock on it, doubled over with his camera, crying.

I was all disoriented. I saw a turned-over bagel cart, and I grabbed a couple of Snapples. I used one to rinse out my mouth and wash my face. I drank some of the other. Then I started running again. It was chaos.

Even though I'd been around these streets a million times, I was completely lost. I looked up and saw my building, 1 World Trade Center, in flames. I looked for the other tower because I always use the two buildings as my North Star. I couldn't see it. I stood there thinking, It doesn't make sense. At that angle, it was apparent how devastating it all was. I looked up and said, "Hundreds of people died today." I was trying to come to terms with it -- to intellectualize it. My wife's family is Jewish, and her grandparents talk about the Holocaust and the ability of humans to be cruel and kill one another. This is a part of a pattern of human behavior, I told myself. And I just happen to be very close to this one.

Maybe it seems an odd reaction in hindsight. But I was just trying to grab on to something, some sort of logic or justification, rather than let it all overwhelm me. I was raised Irish-Catholic, and I consider myself a spiritual person. I did thank God for getting me out of there for my kid. But I also tend to be a pretty logical thinker. I'm alive because I managed to find a space that had enough support structure that it didn't collapse on me. I'm alive because the psycho in the plane decided to hit at this angle as opposed to that angle. I'm alive because I went down this stairwell instead of that stairwell. I can say that now. But at that moment, I was just trying to give myself some sanity.

I was still running when I heard another huge sound. I didn't know it at the time, but it was the other tower -- my tower -- coming down. A cop on the street saw me and said, "Buddy, are you okay?" It was obvious that he was spooked by looking at me. Aside from being caked with dust, I had blood all over me that wasn't mine. He was trying to help, but I could tell he was shocked by what he was seeing.

I was looking for a pay phone to call my wife, but every one I passed was packed. My wife never entertained for a minute that I could be alive. She had turned on the TV and said, "Eighty-first floor. Both buildings collapsed. There's not a prayer." It was difficult for her to look at Ben because she was having all these feelings. "Should I be grateful that I have him? Is he going to be a reminder of Mike every time I look at him?" At the time, these thoughts just go through your head.

Finally, I got to a pay phone where there was a woman just kind of looking up. I shoved her out of the way. I guess it was kind of harsh, but I had to get in touch with my family. I dialed Boston and a recording said, "Six dollars and twenty-five cents, please." So I pulled out a quarter and called my brother at NYU. I got his voice mail. "I'm alive! I'm alive! Call Jenny! Let everyone know I'm alive!" It was 10:34.

I started running toward where my brother Chris worked at NYU. I'm the last of six in my family. The two oldest are girls, the four youngest, boys. Chris is the second oldest above me. The classic older brother. The one who'd put you down and give you noogies. He probably would have had the best view of the whole thing going on. But he'd left his office, thinking, My brother is dead. He walked home to Brooklyn across the Manhattan Bridge, unable to look back.

On my way to NYU, I met this guy - -a stranger named Gary -- who had a cell phone. He tried and tried and couldn't get through to Boston. I said, "I gotta get to NYU" and left him. But he kept calling Boston and eventually got through to my family. At that point, four of my five siblings were at the house. My wife's father was on his way from New York with a black suit in the car.

The people at NYU took me in. They were great. I said, "I don't need anything. Just call my family." They kept on trying to get through. They couldn't, they couldn't. Finally, they got through.

I said, "Jenny, it's me." And there was a moan. It was this voice I'd never heard before in my life. And I was saying, "I'm alive. I'm alive. I love you. I love you. I love you." We cried and cried. Then the phone went dead.

At that point, I went into the bathroom to clean myself off, and suddenly I couldn't open my eyes anymore. They were swollen. I knew I wasn't blind, but if I opened my eyes toward any amount of light there was intense, intense pain. I didn't feel this while I was running. It seemed to happen as soon as I was safe and the adrenaline came out of me.

At the NYU health center, the doctors said, "Yeah, your eyes are scratched to shit." They put drops in them, but they needed more sophisticated equipment to see what was going on. I wound up having 147 fiberglass splinters taken out of my eyes.

Chris came back from Brooklyn to pick me up, and I held on to him and hugged him. Later, he said, "You know, Michael, this is why I stuffed you in sleeping bags and beat on you all those years as a kid. Just to toughen you up for something like this."

When we got back to my place, I collapsed and it all hit me. I cried like I've never cried in my life. I finally let loose, and it felt better. My brother helped me pack, and we got to Westchester, where my wife and family had gone. Jenny came running to the door. I can remember hearing the dum, dum, dum, dum, dum of her footsteps.

My mother was there. My dad. My father-in-law. They all hugged me. Then they gave me my son. I could tell by the noises he was making that he was happy. I hugged him and sort of started the healing process there.

Later, I went to Maine to sit by the ocean for a few days and get my head together. I saw all of my old friends. It was amazing. Everyone I know in my life has called me to tell me they love me. It's like having your funeral without having to die.

For a while right after, I wondered,

How the hell am I going to work again? How am I going to give a damn about selling someone a T-1 line? I had a list of people who were going to be my business for the next year, hundreds of people, all on my desk -- blown up. For the life of me, I can't dredge up those names. That will cost me a quarter of my income, maybe more. You know what? Who cares? I'm alive and I'm here. A big deal has gone to big deal.

I lost a friend in 2 World Trade Center. He was one of those guys you liked as soon as you met him. Howard Boulton. Beautiful person. His baby was born three months ahead of mine. He was on the eighty-fourth floor and I was on the eighty-first. The last conversation he had with his wife was by telephone. He told her, "Something happened to 1 World Trade Center. It's very bad. I don't think Michael Wright is okay. I'm coming home." I like to think Howard wasn't scared like I wasn't scared in the stairwell. I like to think that he heard a rumble like I heard a rumble and then he was gone.

I went to his funeral. To see his wife and his baby -- it would have made you sad even if you didn't know him. But it was much more loaded for me. Here was a perfect reflection of what could've been.

One of the hardest things I had to deal with up to this point -- and still do -- is that my brother Brian, who's one year older than me, has cancer. He and I are practically twins. He has germ-cell cancer in his chest. He recently told me that the good news is they can go in and get it. But the bad news is they might have to take a lung with it. Before September 11, maybe the fact that he was going to lose a lung might have thrown me for a loop. But I found out I love my brother for my brother. I don't love him to run up mountains at a brisk pace with me. My reaction was: Thank God they can get it.

Luckily, I've been well equipped to deal with this. I have a family that's unbelievably close and supportive and a lot of friends. I've been to therapy, and I can do the whole checklist: Do you have a sense of fear and not know where it's coming from? Yup. Can you no longer take pleasure in things you once took pleasure in? Yup. Claustrophobic? Yup. I have nightmares. I jump when I hear a siren. But it's the smell that haunts me. Talk to anyone who was within ten blocks of it and they'll tell you that. I had vaporized people packed up my nose, in my mouth and ears. For weeks, I was picking stuff out of my ears.

I've been giving myself the space to be a little freaky for a while. I don't think this is going to turn me into Rambo or motivate me to go out and sleep with nineteen-year-old girls. Yeah, it's gonna bug me for a while. I'm gonna have some scars on my brain. But I don't think it's going to affect me long term.

I don't wonder, Why me? Some people say, "You made it out; you're destined for great things." Great, I tell them. I made it out, now why not put a little pressure on me while you're at it.

In the reflection of the hotel windows across the street, I saw Tower Two coming down. I dove to the ground and started crying. The explosion was extreme, the noise impossible to describe. That noise is a noise thousands of people heard when they died.

Read more: http://www.esquire.com/features/what-ive-learned/ESQ0102-JAN_WTC_rev?click=main_sr#ixzz0OKMG9Xx2

"Michael Wright Interview - September 11 Survivor -." Esquire. Web. 16 Aug. 2009. <http://www.esquire.com/features/what-ive-learned/ESQ0102-JAN_WTC_rev?click=main_sr>.

>.<

My Comp and Language Persuasive Essay on a Graphic Design subject is due in six hours and I have no clue what to do it on. I keep telling myself, "Just one more week - just a few more days" but NO I cannot take it! This is so aggravating! Does anyone else find it absolute ridiculous that a language professor require that whatever you write in the class, the subject must pertain to your chosen field?

smarterfox

So if you are like me and use Mozilla as their web browser, you probably have at least once checked out the add-ons they provide. I have a few, and I thought I would show you the one I just downloaded today. It is called Smarter Fox, and it's really neat. When I highlight something on a page, it brings up this cute little button that has six options on it ::

• What is this?
• Search Google
• Tweet This!
• Search on Twitter
• Search OneRiot
• Search Wikipedia

It's pretty handy, and you can also add it to sites of your own. I added it here to my blogger, and the add-on promises that you guys will be able to do the same on my page too. You should check it out and see if you like it, and while you're at it look around at the other really cool add-ons like Adblock Plus, Zemanta and Yoono.

sam worthington ... *giggle*

While I am on Blogger, and have no muse whatsoever for class, I thought I would bring to your attention the September (and heavenly anointed) issue of Esquire Magazine. An other all star cover and article by one of my favourite magazines. I even forgot to highlight last month's (Gerard Butler - *drool*) Three words - yeah he is, said in a very 'Can he be any hotter?' Chandler-like tone..

Sam Worthington- known to most of you as Marcus Wright, the character who blew 'superstar' Christian Bale's John Connor out of the water, and anyone's minds who had him pegged for their next movie (thank the Lord omg - he only has one movie that's been publically announced so far) ... You will see him next in Avatar, then Clash of the Titans - he's even getting Captain Nemo in 2,000. And of course, the roles will keep coming. That thing sort of happens when a 'great' like James Cameron pegs you as the best actor of all time or such.

Anyway, I can't be on too much longer - I do have a deadline for homework, after all. But please, please check out the article on this guy - I don't know why, but I just adore him. He's awesome. He makes me want to send him out to dig a hole or do something else that will get him dirty then show him off to all the girls in the town and say, 'Look at this guy - he's hot and he isn't pretty like that thing you call a 'man' you've got on your arm'. I dunno - I have a thing for guys who can be dirty. I guess I like to be more delicate than the guy I'm with? *Shrugs*. Anyway - he's awesome, just check him out <3>

EDIT ::
And yay! A new Sam Worthington website!!! One of the best - he might just beat out Hugh Jackman for my Jon XD

(picture of a dirty sam worthington in titans - woo!!!)

ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

I just really want to go to sleep. I hate my class. I cannot get anything down in notepad that is anywhere near colour or psychology or graphic design ... This teacher is an absolute dolt. And I am really sleepy. And I cannot wait to get out of this class.

victoria ...

So it is official ... Bryce Dallas Howard, who also plays my Aife, is going to be playing Victoria in Eclipse, the third installment of the Twilight film series. To be perfectly honest, I abhorred Twilight, the first film, and thought they seriously exaggerated the drama from the books. BUT - it is Bryce Dallas Howard, whom I love, so of course I cannot wait! So now I have an excuse (unfortunately) to see not only the second film (come on - it's Jacob's book!) but also the third ... not that the films are going to be making any money off of me. I'll wait till they're available with my Blockbuster-Netflix-wanna-be subscription thingie. But yay! This means more pics of Bryce, and most likely vampire-ish pics as well!!! How awesome is that?