Okay, I gotta get some links out of my system, then I'll take care of Liante's demands. 
This song is running through my head all the time. Tis art!
Badass Gallery of Cityscapes. It's one of the wierd things about me, as a boy from the wild hills of WI: I ADORE the sight of industrial sprawl. I always am amazed when I drive into Milwaukee. This is a lime factory, but the principal is the same: tubes, scaffolding, mazelike labyrnths of metal and stone...beautiful in it's own way, as a representation of human success and power.
This gallery gives me a similar feeling, but much more contextualized. It's presented as art and commentary, rather than as photos, so it's hard not to side with the presenter of the combined horror and beauty of the scenes, but, IMHO, that's not special to China or landfills -- it's a human-wide phenomenon.
Crates make the best pixel art. I'm told that these are actual crates, stacked into shapes of videogame characters, including Samus Aran, and a Miniature Mario. Aaaah, nostalgia.
Sweet Stamps, at least from my nerdly perspective. The same is true of this mathematic art.
Also, I want cake....
***************
Update Pt. II: THIS TIME IT'S MORE PERSONAL-ER!
20 things about myself is what I understand the rules to be. I'm not sure I feel safe enough to admit 20 things to the nameless, faceless, cold, dark recesses of the interweb. Especially since I'm feelin' mopey and lonely at the moment.
But let's start and see where this goes...
#1: I don't have a high school. I did, once upon a time, but I was among the last graduating class. The school closed a week after our graduation ceremony. It was poor, private, and suffered from both staffing and student problems. It's easy to keep kids in order when there's a whole well-financed system of private school thought police, but when it's struggling to hire teachers and maintain dignity, it's all too easy to see the rot at the heart of Denmark. Of course, it makes the virtue shine though, too...
#2: I starred in an independant film. Nothing happened with it (though I believe it got shown at a few film festivals), but I shaved my head and played a bitter 17 year old dying cancer boy. I journeyed out East for 3 months with the director and this guy who said he knew the drummer from Reel Big Fish. I think they were happy to be rid of me, and that's when my love affair with NYC began in earnest. When I went through some shit recently, I threw away my only copy of the movie. So now it exists only in hazy memories and vapor. I regret doing that...but I was hardly in the proper state of mind.
#3: My dad is a cop and an ex-Marine. To this day, I have trouble participating in the usual anti-authoritarian rhetoric I hear while amongst my more countercultural friends. I guess I consider it something of a virtue, in light of my selected major and all.
#4: I've largely paid my own way through education. It's because of loopholes: I'm bright enough, but I'm not THE brightest. My family isn't poor enough to get much financial aid, but they don't help me much, so I have to make up the difference. I work hard, but I don't have many connections, making it hard to get into competitive programs. I have to work, so I can't build resumes with internships or volunteer work. So since I'm just shy of academic genius and I'm just shy of the poverty line, I end up struggling. It's a giant hassle, 'specially when personal issues compound it.
#5: As a student of religion, I've found my faith FUBAR'd. Raised Catholic, focusing in Islam, with exposure to the Occult, I don't have an understanding of the Unseen that classes me with any other group or person. My beleif structure shares as much with Candomble and Santoria as it does with Protestantism or Sufism. I'm as much Black Plague Catholic as I am Japanese Imperial Shinto. I tend to think this is something common in human nature. I can't really brag about my book collection -- I own some holy texts, basically -- but I've always valued what people said over what they've written about themselves, anyway. Let's face it, Sura XXXI only matters in how people actually use it. Fluffy Wiccans is an *expected* quality of Wicca, not a misinterpretation but a reinterpretation.
#6: I like to debate, to contest, to play devil's advocate and to understand the taboos of my society. I don't share the opinion of White Supremicists, but I refuse to treat them as less than human because of their beliefs, and I don't like it when others do it, either. This is related to (a) the fact that I can't stand unjustified authority, and (b) the fact that I have an obsession with my own independance. It's why I couldn't bring myself to join the Marines that wanted me. I need to help this place in my own way, not in their way.
#7: I am rediculously hopelessly romantic. It's absurd. True Love, Fate, all that shit, I can buy it, hook, line, and sinker. Maybe it's 'cuz even jaded religion students who can reduce any faith to a functionalist theory need to believe in something...it makes girls kinda dangerous for me, but I'm into danger.
#8: I have a deep craving for recognition. It reaches back from early childhood. I want people to notice me and I want to make them happy. I am saddest when I am alone or making others unhappy.
#9: That thing hanging to the right of the picture is GIR from Invader ZIM. He's in a hat. There is also a monkey there.
#10: I'm developing a THING for opera. I can't explain it. My hillbilly-esque family would be horrified. "That ain't even English, boy!" But the more I understand it, the more I'm growing to like it. I blame Weezer's Pinkerdon album. It just *had* to be based on Maddamme Butterfly, didn't it?!
#11: I'm irnterested in people. I want to know how they think, how they see the world, what perspective they have on the chaos that surrounds them. I like their ideas, I like their perceptions and their misconceptions. The society they grew up in is interesting, but what truly raises my eyebrows is the individual volition. I understand that people are ruled by fear and that secrecy is the order of the day, but I always want to overcome that...to grab someone else, hear what they have to say, and have them just speak, honestly and straightly....ah, it'd be beautiful.
#12: I've been held at gunpoint, robbed for my money and the money of the store. Three against one. No stories of how I was a ninja, just how I gave them money and then sat there and wondered why they didn't steal my laptop.
#13: My idols as a writer are Vonnegut and Gaiman. If I cuold force them to mate, perhaps hte spawn would produce works of rediculous and absurd profundity that fascinate as they delight. Hmm? Maybe.
#14: Boldness is sexy. To the XTREME.
#15: I have HORRIBLE timing. I'm constantly running ever-so-slightly late for things. I think it's somewhat genetic -- an uncle of mine has the same problem. The helplessness I have over it is really annoying. Trust me, I didn't show up 15 minutes late because you aren't important, but more because I'm scatterbrained and easily distracted.
#16: Related to that: HORRIBLE memory. I won't know what you were talking about by the end of the hour. If I recognize your name a year later, it's a compliment. My attention span isn't bad -- I can focus pretty well -- but the ability to shift gears like that is a COMPLETE shift. I don't know what happened a few minutes ago, I can't tell what time it is, I just kind of hope my internal clock knows what's up. Thankfully, it usually does.
#17: I mean what I say. I try more for earnestness than honesty, though I gotta admit they're both pretty key in my life. The details are always very sketchy -- bad memory, frazzled mind, you see. I may not be able to keep the numbers, dates, and names straight. But how it felt, what I thought, etc....these things, I can't really change. So I confess them. Sometimes to people who don't really give a shit, which is awkward at best.
#18: I am an expert on terrorism and the occult. Yes, this is true. I know how to raise zombis and how to cure the sick by blowing on water. Plus, the performance of fear and the culture of thought control. The current condition of the US freaks me the freak out because it's so mislead and so confused. When ideology trumps nessecity, there are problems with the effin' world, man. Even Haitian necromancers don't have that problem.
#19: I have seen the fnords.
#20: There are secret things not on this list that only those with the strategy guide and perhaps a Game Genie can access! Bonus Stages!
This song is running through my head all the time. Tis art!
Badass Gallery of Cityscapes. It's one of the wierd things about me, as a boy from the wild hills of WI: I ADORE the sight of industrial sprawl. I always am amazed when I drive into Milwaukee. This is a lime factory, but the principal is the same: tubes, scaffolding, mazelike labyrnths of metal and stone...beautiful in it's own way, as a representation of human success and power.
This gallery gives me a similar feeling, but much more contextualized. It's presented as art and commentary, rather than as photos, so it's hard not to side with the presenter of the combined horror and beauty of the scenes, but, IMHO, that's not special to China or landfills -- it's a human-wide phenomenon.
Crates make the best pixel art. I'm told that these are actual crates, stacked into shapes of videogame characters, including Samus Aran, and a Miniature Mario. Aaaah, nostalgia.
Sweet Stamps, at least from my nerdly perspective. The same is true of this mathematic art.
Also, I want cake....
***************
Update Pt. II: THIS TIME IT'S MORE PERSONAL-ER!
20 things about myself is what I understand the rules to be. I'm not sure I feel safe enough to admit 20 things to the nameless, faceless, cold, dark recesses of the interweb. Especially since I'm feelin' mopey and lonely at the moment.
But let's start and see where this goes...
#1: I don't have a high school. I did, once upon a time, but I was among the last graduating class. The school closed a week after our graduation ceremony. It was poor, private, and suffered from both staffing and student problems. It's easy to keep kids in order when there's a whole well-financed system of private school thought police, but when it's struggling to hire teachers and maintain dignity, it's all too easy to see the rot at the heart of Denmark. Of course, it makes the virtue shine though, too...
#2: I starred in an independant film. Nothing happened with it (though I believe it got shown at a few film festivals), but I shaved my head and played a bitter 17 year old dying cancer boy. I journeyed out East for 3 months with the director and this guy who said he knew the drummer from Reel Big Fish. I think they were happy to be rid of me, and that's when my love affair with NYC began in earnest. When I went through some shit recently, I threw away my only copy of the movie. So now it exists only in hazy memories and vapor. I regret doing that...but I was hardly in the proper state of mind.
#3: My dad is a cop and an ex-Marine. To this day, I have trouble participating in the usual anti-authoritarian rhetoric I hear while amongst my more countercultural friends. I guess I consider it something of a virtue, in light of my selected major and all.
#4: I've largely paid my own way through education. It's because of loopholes: I'm bright enough, but I'm not THE brightest. My family isn't poor enough to get much financial aid, but they don't help me much, so I have to make up the difference. I work hard, but I don't have many connections, making it hard to get into competitive programs. I have to work, so I can't build resumes with internships or volunteer work. So since I'm just shy of academic genius and I'm just shy of the poverty line, I end up struggling. It's a giant hassle, 'specially when personal issues compound it.
#5: As a student of religion, I've found my faith FUBAR'd. Raised Catholic, focusing in Islam, with exposure to the Occult, I don't have an understanding of the Unseen that classes me with any other group or person. My beleif structure shares as much with Candomble and Santoria as it does with Protestantism or Sufism. I'm as much Black Plague Catholic as I am Japanese Imperial Shinto. I tend to think this is something common in human nature. I can't really brag about my book collection -- I own some holy texts, basically -- but I've always valued what people said over what they've written about themselves, anyway. Let's face it, Sura XXXI only matters in how people actually use it. Fluffy Wiccans is an *expected* quality of Wicca, not a misinterpretation but a reinterpretation.
#6: I like to debate, to contest, to play devil's advocate and to understand the taboos of my society. I don't share the opinion of White Supremicists, but I refuse to treat them as less than human because of their beliefs, and I don't like it when others do it, either. This is related to (a) the fact that I can't stand unjustified authority, and (b) the fact that I have an obsession with my own independance. It's why I couldn't bring myself to join the Marines that wanted me. I need to help this place in my own way, not in their way.
#7: I am rediculously hopelessly romantic. It's absurd. True Love, Fate, all that shit, I can buy it, hook, line, and sinker. Maybe it's 'cuz even jaded religion students who can reduce any faith to a functionalist theory need to believe in something...it makes girls kinda dangerous for me, but I'm into danger.
#8: I have a deep craving for recognition. It reaches back from early childhood. I want people to notice me and I want to make them happy. I am saddest when I am alone or making others unhappy.
#9: That thing hanging to the right of the picture is GIR from Invader ZIM. He's in a hat. There is also a monkey there.
#10: I'm developing a THING for opera. I can't explain it. My hillbilly-esque family would be horrified. "That ain't even English, boy!" But the more I understand it, the more I'm growing to like it. I blame Weezer's Pinkerdon album. It just *had* to be based on Maddamme Butterfly, didn't it?!
#11: I'm irnterested in people. I want to know how they think, how they see the world, what perspective they have on the chaos that surrounds them. I like their ideas, I like their perceptions and their misconceptions. The society they grew up in is interesting, but what truly raises my eyebrows is the individual volition. I understand that people are ruled by fear and that secrecy is the order of the day, but I always want to overcome that...to grab someone else, hear what they have to say, and have them just speak, honestly and straightly....ah, it'd be beautiful.
#12: I've been held at gunpoint, robbed for my money and the money of the store. Three against one. No stories of how I was a ninja, just how I gave them money and then sat there and wondered why they didn't steal my laptop.
#13: My idols as a writer are Vonnegut and Gaiman. If I cuold force them to mate, perhaps hte spawn would produce works of rediculous and absurd profundity that fascinate as they delight. Hmm? Maybe.
#14: Boldness is sexy. To the XTREME.
#15: I have HORRIBLE timing. I'm constantly running ever-so-slightly late for things. I think it's somewhat genetic -- an uncle of mine has the same problem. The helplessness I have over it is really annoying. Trust me, I didn't show up 15 minutes late because you aren't important, but more because I'm scatterbrained and easily distracted.
#16: Related to that: HORRIBLE memory. I won't know what you were talking about by the end of the hour. If I recognize your name a year later, it's a compliment. My attention span isn't bad -- I can focus pretty well -- but the ability to shift gears like that is a COMPLETE shift. I don't know what happened a few minutes ago, I can't tell what time it is, I just kind of hope my internal clock knows what's up. Thankfully, it usually does.
#17: I mean what I say. I try more for earnestness than honesty, though I gotta admit they're both pretty key in my life. The details are always very sketchy -- bad memory, frazzled mind, you see. I may not be able to keep the numbers, dates, and names straight. But how it felt, what I thought, etc....these things, I can't really change. So I confess them. Sometimes to people who don't really give a shit, which is awkward at best.
#18: I am an expert on terrorism and the occult. Yes, this is true. I know how to raise zombis and how to cure the sick by blowing on water. Plus, the performance of fear and the culture of thought control. The current condition of the US freaks me the freak out because it's so mislead and so confused. When ideology trumps nessecity, there are problems with the effin' world, man. Even Haitian necromancers don't have that problem.
#19: I have seen the fnords.
#20: There are secret things not on this list that only those with the strategy guide and perhaps a Game Genie can access! Bonus Stages!