Napping...

Jonathan's skyping with his mom on how to work a crockpot- he hadn't known to leave the crockpot cooking over church. I nap on the couch, waking up in time to hear him make the call, but falling back asleep as he cuts up vegetables in order to fry them before putting them into the crockpot, to speed the process up now that it hasn't been cooking the whole time. My dream lasts as long as it takes to tell it: it is of Kong scientists, like scientists who are actually King Kongs, studying the children of the native villagers, administering the IQ tests they've invented to them but puzzled that the children who have what we would classify as autism seem to be underperforming on the tests, and trying to calibrate them to correct for this failure.

Delicious Hot S'mesh

Okay so there's stifff here whenre it's like I'm really tierd and I've been that for an hour or so but haven't got to bed because I can't stop watching the Get-Along Gang like the Nelvana one not the TV show itself but the half-hour special where the animation is actually pretty decent but the plot is still made out of dumb and it's like what am I even doing but too tired to question even that.

But I made the final class schedule today am taking the class again which had two slots left, got an email with the saying that there was three but then another person signed up before me, information design on campus, dropping the advanced typography (that's the email there, that's what it was about, saying there was just too darn many people signed up and offering alternative suggestions.) So things work out, guess not doing too well in the class the first time (after being all behind and stuff in it like I was saying when I was in it) was for a reason, so I could signed for it again after the lateness for the advanced typography signup again? THE ONLY REASON i TOOK THE CLASSES ON AUTUMN TRACK WAS BECAUES IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE WINTER THIS SEMESTER OFFERED, DARN IT. npw ?//I'n a semester more older than I should be and i's just unnatural becase my schedule is having no fun at all with the prereq1s reuqired.

I am100/% not so tired as not to reveal um whatever the word is, alright I CAN TYPE PROPERLY but too tired to think of real words for things at least. Are yp not entertained?

and then with that I could drop bookmaking, which had a person in from of me in the line in the light of the waitlist there, but Iv'e got the all the creids signed uop fro!

W'er the getalong gang getalong gang getalong getalaong we alwasy get to alng get alpng get akolng. Woo.

EDIT: uum so the title of this post was meant to be a pun based off of Buzz's "delicious hot s'hmos" line from Toy Story 2, combined with the word "semester." Must've been really tired to think that made sense...

I'm Not a Magical T-Shirt Making Wizard, But I Play One on TV

Actually getting round to printing anything today, just a test print at first on some newsprint I've got, lo! and behold!... no ink went through the screen. The screen I've got emulsed, I under-developed it when it came time to expose it to light (really I'm not sure how familiar anyone is with the process, but I've explained it in brief before,) which means that the light that got through didn't go through all the way, and there were at least no pockmarks or imperfections in the print that would need to be stopped out, because there was no print. The screen was airtight, much more inktight. 

But I think I found a comfortable workflow- it's certainly not rushing the printing like mad (although, not having officially done the printing, that might still be alright) but I mean, not making the prints but working on them like mad- degreasing the screens and emulsing them and drying them in a darkroom and exposing them and washing them out and squeegeeing ink through- that's not something I'd rush. Working on it a little bit every day is something I'm totally fine with, though. Some every day, not like mad, but like consistent. And as for printing, cranking out prints, there's still the weekends in the semester.

I'm still pretty inadequate with everything, but I enjoy doing it and it feels good and I'm still seriously considering getting a BLFC booth even though this week didn't turn out remotely (alright, remotely) as planned.

There's still tomorrow, also...

At Least Business Expenses are a Tax Write-Off

I contacted the DMV regarding my permit which expires tomorrow, and I'd need to be in-state in order to renew. There is a 30-day grace period. So ???.

...

Okay turns out that like there's a $50 rent for staying Spring Break, and I wasn't supposed to be here the whole time. But if I pay that $50 by tonight, then I'm good and everything's cleared up. And I'm good for the $50, but...

I really really don't want to have to spend money on avoidable stuff like that, right now. The semester's coming up, and there's still major credits that I'm not taking because of that whole late-signup thing. I wanted to take advanced typography this semester, darnit! I've signed up for a class instead of that, already, but there's still 3 credits of on-hold-ness from a class I signed up for that might not get off of hold, so 3 credits I still need to sign up for. Maybe.

Meanwhile alongside the $50 thing. The only 20 amp outlet in the whole apartment complex (need it for the flash heater to cure the ink after it's been printed) is in the lounge, and I need to work something out because it's heavy and I can't lug it up and down all the time but I can't keep it in the lounge either. And what's the deal with my keeping my printing stuff in my bedroom anyway? There's not enough room to swing all four print stations around, in the bedroom, unless I lift the press off the ground and onto the exposure unit- that would give enough room to clear the bed so that I'd be able to rotate all arms freely. Theoretically. But I'm not sure, and heaving heavy-duty equipment onto a glass surface, even one protected by cardboard or a styrofoam flat or something, doesn't strike me as the wisest thing. 

So yeah, my real question is, would it be worth it to keep everything in-house, or would I be able to locate a studio for myself off-site? I'm considering my options, seeing if there's a place I can relocate to, and for cheap... 

There are a few places nearby that look promising. For one, there's the old beauty college on College Avenue, a couple of blocks away. I've seen it rented out for parking for food trucks, and there's a sign there now that says something about Porter's employee parking only (Porter's is the craft and frame store a few blocks away from my apartment; I haunt it quite frequently.) So that seems like a great option, but with no guarantees of exclusivity.

There's a violin place not far away from that that's changed locations, leaving the old shell behind, an empty building with no inhabitants. I tracked down the new location to talk to the guy, but it's changed hands again since he's sold it; he gave me a phone number for the county in order to track down the current owner, and now I finally have a name on the current property owner: a certain Dennis Butterfield, no address on file, no phone number on file. 

And then there is that house that's apparently being moved out of right next door. But all I need is a studio, and I'm not sure renting a whole house is worth it for that...

So that's where I stand right now. On Thursday I'm about where I am right now in printing as I'd planned on being by Tuesday, plus I've only a limited amount of t-shirts already purchased upon which I can print. I'd need more, which means purchasing them, and then I'd need to flip them and sell them for money but make none of it tangibly because there's still a couple thou left to get myself out of the black.

Everything's heavy right now. Everything's so, so heavy.

Literally, everything is heavy. It's my nap time, and I'm having trouble lifting stuff... my head, this laptop, my hands...

ONE BATH LATER: I'm looking at all the brony and furry conventions within driving distance which take place this year, preferably not during the semester but it's increasingly looking like sinking the cash into getting a booth at BLFC in June is a good investment: the second-most-likely candidate, Crystal Mountain Pony Con, is in Layton Utah this summer, which seems doable, but it's in July at the same time Ryan and I are home for Independence Day/the dentist's, so really it's out. I like the idea of grabbing a booth (if there are any still available) at BLFC, though: it was where Hyena Agenda, another furry t-shirt designer and a pretty major/popular one, launched; it's the third-largest furry convention in the United States and getting bigger so that's greater exposure over any of the littler guys; and there's no need to spend exorbitant hotel fees when you're just an hour or so away from home and the gas money for that is still way cheaper than the going hotel rates these days.

But it'd still cost money to rent a booth and find a ride down there and back up again, not to mention the materials cost like I already said, and I'm still in the black, and my business model of "extra gravy always" does not pay for itself very easily, and I'm still considering paying money to rent I'm thinking the violin place, and have myself a well-situated studio... (but maybe making that money back in rent by renting the space to other students who may need studio or storage space? so maybe that could be my real business for a while, with the printing thing as a hobby... (which it already was anyway, like the whole t-shirt thing isn't even why I'm into printmaking but it is what sells.)) Why is the future so expensive!

First I need to track down this Dennis guy and see if the place is even available...

Oh and also pay spring break's rent.

Red Lights with a Blue Shade

I am a grade-A crappy emulsor, but that's one of the things we're exploring this week, why I wanted to get on it so early. Got red lightbulbs, red felt blanket covering the bedroom window which lets in only red light. It's still frightening, it seems not dark-roomy enough, but it should be good. (I've been in real dark room(s) before; the lighting is much more dramatic than what I've managed to set up.)

Ran into Devon, coming home an hour ago from the movies- he happened to be stepping out of a side door of some building, as I was walking past. Just random. Classmate of mine, perhaps you remember. He was in our ward during summer last year, and it turned out he has a stutter, which I'd never noticed any of the classes I had with him. Last time I saw him, or one of the last times at least, was at a gallery open house- he's engaged, turned out then; looks like he was never a romantic rival. But it's strange how fate brings people together again, no matter how briefly.

My sleep schedule this week has been really bizarre- consistent, but bizarre. Maybe comes from the almost all-nighter at finals, I don't know, but, I sleep for a few hours each night, and take a nap in the morning, and take a nap in the afternoon, and in total it adds up to adequate sleep. Feeling sleepy again right now.

My haircut's looking much better; I can go places hatless if I want. Think I'll go to the temple tomorrow?

Woo, nodding off. etter name this post and head to bed.

La La Land and the Literal Hollywood Fairytale

I study fairy tales a lot, not just because of my general research on folklore I conduct in fits and starts when I find the time and motivation to work on Things That Don't Even Come Back Around, not just because it's a great study if you want to analyze how stories are put together, but also because it's just a dang fascinating thing. Saw La La Land today, finally; it's the last 2016 film that was on my list to catch, and... there's 3 films about Hollywood that came out last year, right, this, Hail, Caesar! from the Coen brothers, and Café Society from Woody Allen. And, well the Coen brothers may be (among) the greatest directors of all time, since they're something that everyone can agree is pretty great, but I just want to focus on La La Land and Café Society. Because, they're not the same movie, but they're both adaptations of the same fairy tale.

One of the first things that strikes you when you begin an in-depth research of fairy tales is how, well I don't even know how to put it, how the same-yet-different different fairy tales are. The same elements are all there, just arranged in a different way, and sometimes tales with completely different elements can be telling the same story. Twisted, fractured fairy tales are nothing new, remixing is an intrinsic part of fairy stories. With Persian fairy tales I find this especially striking, but you see the same thing in European folklore as well; is there any real difference between Beauty and the Beast and Hans My Hedgehog? Of course there is, because there's always a difference, but the more you study the more samey everything feels, while at the same time the more the individual details and arrangements of elements call out to you as being unique and worthy of archiving. I find that critics who deride, say, Disney adaptations of fairy tales, and speaking of how violent and scary the "original" fairy tales are, are missing the point entirely, and furthermore I can't really see the impetus behind such things as the Aarne-Thompson classification system, which groups fairy tales by similarity of elements- which elements, if you're paying attention, are in reality entirely arbitrary.

And so when I say that La La Land and Café Society are the same fairy tale, they really are both fairy tales, and they really are the same. Outside of the obvious plot similarity, they're both structured stories from a bygone oral tradition: neither ends when you think it will, going on twists with the story structure itself; both introduce story elements (characters particularly, is what I'm thinking of) at times when you think that all the pieces would have been set up; both have bizarre timeshifts built into the structure, particularly at the end. Would I have noticed had both stories not been about the Hollywood dream? Would I have noticed had the love stories ended with the protagonists not ended up together, and only remeeting years later when it's far too late for this cosmic tragedy in the story structure to be repaired? Would I have noticed had one of Mia's roommates (checking IMDb it's probably Tracy, played by Callie Hernandez) not looked a heck of a lot like Kristen Stewart? I don't know. Replace any of those elements (barring the roommate one,) and it's a different fairy tale.

I recommend maybe renting them, both movies, studying them side-by-side. And then purchasing Hail, Caesar! to own. Because it really is a pretty underrated one, you guys,

So speaking of fairy tales and Kristen Stewart! Beauty and the Beast. I brought the original fairy tale up earlier for some reason, but I'm talking about the movie, the live action one, the Disney one, of this year. When I first saw the original Beauty and the Beast trailer, I thought that Emma Watson at the end there was Kristen Stewart (have I told you this before?). And I love Emma Watson, but how great would Kristen Stewart be in Beauty and the Beast? I mean, then the world would be able to see what I see.

Where's My Bandit Hat? (PretzelsVlog no 2)

It took all day to put this video together; I hope you enjoy it.



I describe my haircut as "wicked" in a take which got saved to my lav but which the camera was not actually recording- which is a real shame because that take was my favorite. I mean, that is an accurate assessment of the haircut situation. And I really liked that take... Aaargh it happens I guess.



Meanwhile, in grades-land, it looks like my semester grades are in! I got grades, in all my classes. Good ones? Bad ones? Very much so, thanks for asking!

Paint



Didn't even notice the time. Been painting- not printing but painting. It's part of this, thing I'm doing (I'll do? Haven't actually 'grammed anything on my Pretzels account...) on IG. So I've been painting, and I didn't even notice the time until about a half-hour ago when I checked it when I got hungry... think I'll vlog tomorrow-- or today rather, it being so late-- and explain the sitch re: Spring Break.

How to Obtain Swag/Goodies After the Semester Ends

With the end of the semester and people moving out, you know what that means... dumpster diving season! Haven't scored anything as sweet as the laptop Ryan found a couple of semesters ago, but, I have a baking pan now made of actual glass! There are loads of really hoity-toity apartments, whose residents I kind of feel sorry for not only because the rent must be ridiculously high but also because they're so far away from campus, but for real there are some super nice digs around... digs means housing, right?... for real, though, super far away from campus, it took I don't even know how long, to drag everything back... but, you figure, the nicer the digs, the nicer the stuff people are willing to part with. I no longer need to use a cardboard box as a laundry basket!

It's these rich conservative types who are always going on about welfare being bad, but the nice stuff they throw away sure seems to enable a whole lot more homeless folks than the government ever did... For real there was a whole pizza just sitting there (well, it was upside-down, and on the ground, and scattered all over the place, and maybe wet I don't know, and so, no I didn't take it, 'cause ew...)

I spent a lot of time today, a little time yesterday but not that much 'cause finals, and some time the day before, overyester evening (they've got a word for the day after tomorrow, but is there a word for the day before yesterday? [EDIT: Ereyesterday, if tumblr is to be believed?]) in which I didn't, score as much, as I'd hoped... almost got the cops called on me... I told him to go ahead and do it, but I guess he didn't, with me putting that nice thing back and everything.

Some key aspect of my morality (maybe it's not "key," but hey let's say key) deals with not letting things go waste; some key aspect of his dealt with man I don't even know. I don't even know. I can't even think of any better ways of saying how much I don't know where he gets his moral system, because it's just all kinds of baffling to me, all kinds...

WoooO!

Didn't actually go all the way through with the all-nighter; I would have but the only reason would have been, just to do it... went to bed around 4:00 or 5:00ish- 5:28, Fitbit tells me... woke up 8:51... today was spent with a lot of cleaning the apartment, a lot of finishing off that design project, and that's finished... and that's finished!

And the semester's over now!

So my plans for spring break are: stay up here in Rexburg. Print stuff. Those are the plans.

Late-Night Finals, Design Class Designing

My mental acuity is dropping sharply; I don't think I'll be able to cut an all-nighter. Pretty sure I don't need one? I'll probably be able to wake myself up early in the morning, though, seeing how important it would be for me to do so. Already everything seems a fog of half-reality, and I'm not even close to staying up as late as I do sometimes. Alright, I'm close. But man I guess finals season wipes me out. Going to feel like an idiot if it turns out that I need like 4 more hours to polish everything.

This will be all over, 24 hours from now. Sweet - release.

So! Turns out! My phone was on the second floor of the Spori- the communications department lost and found. I'd checked the art department lost and found on, Friday was it, when I realized it wasn't in my apartment?, but no phones had come in and if they had they would have rung audibly when we'd tried to call to locate. Wasn't in the boss custodian's office after all. Ryan said as much, which caused me to look again today, finally taking the possibility it might have been on the second floor seriously. The Spori second floor is a maze of hallways and offices; I had to go around the stairwell all the way to find the communications office, because though it's to the left, with that wall there you need to take three rights instead.

I'm finding I've got occasional drifts back into lucidity. Maybe I will be able to pull an all-nighter off after all. I so do not want to, but, this is the last of those I'll have to do in a while, so I might be able to do this??

Prince Pretzels- Printing a Prototype

Above: the original design for my mailer piece. In case you can't count that high, that's 42 distinct colors in that piece, not counting the white background. That means 42 layers of ink, made of 42 screens, out of 42 uniquely mixed inks. It truly would be an impressive mailer piece, for sure, but something just told me it wouldn't have been worth it to print...

So I tried it with 4 colors instead, not counting the white background: I separated the cyan, magenta, yellow, and black channels from each other in the final image, converted those channels to half tones so that they could be printed and work out as silkscreen stencils, printed those channels out onto individual transparencies, exposed some preprimed screens to light through those printouts (it's literally taking a photograph), set the screens by bathing them in water, and used those as individual "channels" for ink in making the shirt, printing cyan on top of magenta on top of yellow on top of black. The result...

Well it's more Joan Miro than Lauren Faust, color-wise. Hard to believe, even after seeing the original design (heck, designing the original design!) that there's supposed to be rainbows in there... Also kind of reminds me of some of the Fauvists; those guys were way cool... Still, not really what I'd had in mind. Oh well?

Finals Mostly Over... Mostly

Whaaaat is wrong with me; I am so used to not going without sleep... I really both want to, and do not want to, pull an all-nighter... Let's go over all the classes I've got again, and see where I stand in relation to the finals- because I honestly can't remember myself. Um, temporal order, I guess?

Monday-Wednesday-(Friday) classes:
Mesoamerican Art- No class tomorrow; it's over with. Though I need to email the professor about, well his aide absolutely vanished on him, who was going to grade a bunch of papers, so included in that are my movie reviews... so he says to email him if there are any assignments he hasn't graded yet, especially those ones. I may also want to bring up other stuff too, like how he promised extra credit over some misunderstanding (the syllabus was worded misleadingly regarding how many points board games are worth- they're worth more if you play them with fellow students in the class, but it sounded like you get extra points just generally for having more players, so he promised to bump multi-player game points up a little bit if we email him. Plus I've got a couple more questions about that, like, why'd I only get 7 points when it's out of like 25 and not 10, and especially with that and how it was turned in before the early bird special deadline.)

Foundations of the Restoration- the class contribution doc's been turned in; the knowledge survey's been taken. Do the readings for tomorrow, and show up to class.

Animation (Linear)- there's a final project due at 2:00, as class begins. I made a lot of headway into it today, should have it finished by class then. It's like this, animation, thing... how do I explain it...

Alright. Remember this? 2013 Dodge Ram Super Bowl spot, Paul Harvey "God Made a Farmer," two minutes long because that's how Chrysler Group do?

Those are all still photographs, extruded into space so that the camera could do fancy things around them- it's subtle, but if you watch it fast-forward, you can totally tell there's a parallax effect. (Ready for the twist ending? Apparently the guy who teaches the class (Tim Howe) is the one who did all that, like, that commercial, he's the one who made it (for Digital Kitchen, for the Richards Group, for Dodge, for Chrysler.) Won, a few awards, for it, and probably made a billion dollars, I don't know, it's a pretty big one.)

What we're doing isn't quite as fancy as that, but we're also supposed to have cool transition effects, using luma masks and all (black and white imagery, such as a white cloud against a black background, is made so that the black part shows one scene and the white part shows another; you can use this to transition, like if the cloud comes in and the white covers the black, kind of deal.)

Tuesday-Thursday class:
Business for the Professional Artist- ended today. I spent most of my time today doing stuff for this- have my first t-shirt printed. Did not come out as planned. And I've "sold" my first two shirts (sold in scare quotes because the money is not going to me of course.) Still need to, design, and, everything, but they've been ordered! By the end of the semester! So... basically, if I'd actually been posting on social media all this time, I would now be complete with all the assignments that that class had.

They never did ask me how many views I got on my video...

Online Class:
Information design? Hoo boy... this is why I want to maybe pull an all-nighter... I do not want to talk about it...

CMYK

I.

Went all the way across to Centre Square on the opposite end of campus to go do the Business for the Professional Artist final with Mica (Webb.) It's as long a walk to there as it would be were I to go to Albertson's to shop, it's just, a nuts ways away. The final is a take-home, open-note, do-it-with-your-classmates deal, because Bro Burr really wants us to know our stuff, and double-guessing and double-checking the answer in all your notes is a surprisingly effective way to ensure that.

II.

I'm basically brain dead right now.

III.

We went over the conquest of Mexico in Mesoamerican art class today, and then that was it. Got my stuff all turned in, no more class there. Tomorrow's the last day of Burrbiz. Trying to get a print in before then. I've got my CMYK stencils; I just need my CMYK. Been trying to mix some cyan, but it's not been going very well- magenta's next. Yellow and black I already have.

IV. 

Coming out as a furry (in the "debutante" sense, not in the "closet" sense) has been really interesting so far. I can't think off the top of my tired head one thing that's interesting about it, but it's probably that, and really so. Struck me like an existential gong, coming home from finals, looking up at the stars in the night sky of the newborn day, that this thing is happening, and will continue to happen, and is a part of me now. Or, not of me, but of my life: I sank so much into it, the silkscreen print and everything, I'm obligated to continue.

Been seeing more and more often students around campus wearing fluffy faux fur tails. Not even the ladyfurries from Fandomonium[!], the two from Animal Farm, I see doing that. But there was a girl, walking next to this other girl, as I was on my way to print finals stuff for Mesoamerican class, with a tail sticking out from under her long coat, you know? Then I saw, outside of religion class, someone with iron-on patches on their backpack, just, iron-on patches, and it struck me the same way. It's kind of alien to me, expressing personality through modification of dress. Like pinning a bunch of pins on your shoulder bag, you know? I don't understand that. It'd be like getting a tattoo or something; there's just something vaguely, immodest, in the form of, calling attention to yourself, about it. Expressing yourself through appearance rather than action. Strange. Bizarre.

Outside the apartment's kitchen window this morning, or, yesterday morning, I saw that guy again, this guy with a faux fur tail sticking out of his shoulder bag. I've seen him a couple of times before, around this area, not actually on the apartment complex though. I went to investigate, but he'd turned a corner and vanished mysteriously, maybe into the car that had been pulling away. And at Centre Square, searching around to find where Mica was studying, there's, maybe it's a different guy, but, that guy again...

Finals Week Pre-Game Huddle

I am not as tired right now as I was same time last night, or especially the night before, where I actually had to set my alarm for 11:00 pm to wake up so I could still get in my 10,000 steps for the day and also shoot up a post, but I should get to bed soon anyway. I've got a paper to write in the morning- actually, a final. 

Remember how in Mesoamerican Art class the final is to write one/two of two/three papers? Where there are three possible subjects, but two would be selected to be the real questions, so if you precomposed two papers you'd be good to turn in at least one of them? Turns out, announced Friday, that the teacher's having a minor surgery this week, and so the final won't be this Friday but tomorrow. Actually good news, though, because that means: there's only one class period this week; he's cancelling the Aztec exam (giving us all full credit but still allowing us to write a cheat sheet for 10 extra points;) and he's allowing us to choose any of the three topics to write on. I've already started it, but don't really feel like working on it right now, so I figure I'll be more motivated in the morning.

Meanwhile in Information Design class, the module is due on Wednesday instead of Monday, so hey hey.

Meanwhile meanwhile in Business for the Professional Artist class, I'm still reporting on Tuesday how viral my video goes, so go on and share it a bunch?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdN2AQbdVII

The kind of crappy audio quality should be alleviated now, hopefully, because who has two thumbs and types with his thumbs to add CC to videos? Not this guy, but, I'm like that guy who does do that; in all but, I type with the rest of my fingers as well...

Time Lift

Developed a TV series with my companion and apartment mates on my mission- it's a time travel mystery named Time Lift, about an elevator that a man uses to travel to hours throughout the day instead of stories on the building. Not as lame as it sounds! Actually pretty dope. Called "Lift" instead of "Elevator" because it sounds better. It'd be British, so in the same vein as Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes, so it works out. Sort of a cross between those and Groundhog Day. 

There's even an episode where he's taken back to the 1970s when the office building was still a hotel (the office building is based on the JSMB, which used to be the Hotel Utah) and there's a bellhop, and the lift doesn't travel him through time when there's another person on it, so he has to figure out a way to get the bellhop out of the lift so he can travel back to the present. Why did he travel back to the 70s randomly? There's a frizzy haired woman there, maybe she'd know... but I'm getting ahead of myself, stumbling over my own thoughts as all our ideas come rushing back.

So let's go over it. A man (never named him, let's call him "~~~" because why not) discovers that the lift in his office building takes him to hours in the day instead of floors, within at least the day. Maybe this day is the day that he gets framed for corporate espionage, and so he needs to use this time to clear his name? Maybe. (Let's also call him !!!, because sometimes I misreach for the tilde key.) 

Aside from !!!'s getting arrested in the first version of the day, there's a few other exciting things going on that day. 

• The building gets robbed at one point in the day, and !!! realizes that he's the robber- like Prisoner of Azkaban when Harry's waiting there and realizes he's his own father when his real father doesn't show up, but with a ski mask.
• The power goes off during a storm later in the day- he gets trapped by that twice, once when he's taking the elevator through that patch in time, and once when he experiences it from the outside as he needs to go back in time. So he's sitting there in the elevator, power off, listening to himself on the outside pound and sob how he needs to go back. He realizes he doesn't really seem to run into himself a heck of a lot.
• There's a bunch of kids on a field trip earlier in the day, touring the offices.
• There's a party for someone at some point on one of the floors- he shows up every few minutes to grab more and more food for himself.

As the day goes on, !!! compiles a list of things that need to happen during the day, arranged more by minute within each hour with hours being more like physical locations: okay, it's :47, time to go to floor 15, 4:47 pm, where I need to talk to this guy- no wait I got held up, and it's now :51, guess I can go to this floor and do this thing which needs to happen. (The British system is to call the first floor above the ground level floor 1, so it would work out with 12 am being ground and 1 being floor 1, but there's a basement floor, so things still get thrown off.)

When ~~~ activates the elevator shutdown thing, it actually freezes time- but he's stuck in the elevator of course, since the elevator is also frozen between floors. He can use this time to sleep and plan at least. He uses the emergency phone when the elevator is shutdown, once, and there's a voice at the other end! It's a fellow time traveler! Or, traveller, because this is British! His name is BHG, the Bald Headed Guy. In the storyboards I drew up, his eyes also have black censor bars over them. Also BHG isn't his real name of course.

"Who do you work for? Some kind of... time... enforcement... agency?"

"...TEA?"

Only then the twist for one of the episodes is, "who told you that I was a time traveller? Where did you get that idea?" And BHG isn't really a time traveller!

And it turns out that he's just a resolution of paradox. Him, the BHG. There was a bag of M&Ms that went missing when ~~~ decided, early on, to test out the rules of time travel during the wee hours of the morning, throughout the day- it Schrodinger's Catted away in the drawer of the desk, after leaving one drawer open in the future and one drawer closed, and opening one drawer in the past (it makes sense in diagram.) And where did the M&Ms go? They poofed right in front of the bald headed guy. Songs came to him as a child, and his items would go missing- they would be the original items in paradox loops, like the compass in LOST. That compass was BHG's. Whenever the main character stopped the elevator for the night, time would freeze around BHG too. And though the BHG experiences time normally, and can see all the instances of the main character ~~~ running around not as one person but as many, he's the one who knows what's going on, even what's going to happen next. Not that he himself has got the timeline totally straight or anything.

BHG, though not a time traveller himself, would know the future by interfacing with a deck of Tarot cards- he wouldn't see them as cards, but he would look through them and see them as the events they depicted.

The BHG explains the mechanics of fnord time travel on a blackboard to !!!, but all fnord he sees is IRIS. Like "fnord" from fnord Illuminatus!, fnord IRIS has been appearing everywhere to !!!. Who is Iris? What is Iris? Twist: it might just be the BHG talking to Siri but going backwards in time from ~~~'s point of view as he sees it. Or maybe it's this frizzy haired woman that keeps on cropping up everywhere since the random foray into the 70s (it revealed to ~~~ something important about the building's past anyway, and his realization of it is the twist at the end of that episode (yes, just his realization, and not the important thing itself)) but who may be imaginary, since the BHG has no idea what he's talking about when asked about the frizzy haired woman.

It's the end of the day when this explanation is going on- it's implied, and turns out to be true, that you can't travel back in time again once you've passed midnight. They're on the basement level floor, and so there's no "down" button, only up- no going backwards in time, only going forwards. He races up the stairs to the lobby-level lift where there's a down button- but it's past midnight by this point, and he must now face the day after.

There's a second series, maybe, this time where he'd be acting in the role of the BHG to some new, female time traveller, possibly possessing of frizzy hair. And the original BHG might be the bad guy here? So turns out the events of the first series, the time loop, was used by a time prisoner, imprisoned in a looping causal chain, to escape the time loop into normal time. It was a pretty elaborate and awesome escape, especially seeing as how it happened every time, by definition- in an alternate universe? Yeah then I guess maybe there's more than one kind of time travel possible.

So yeah, that's basically Time Lift. I may be missing a few details, like the time he accidentally kills a security guard, stashes the body in a closet that goes through midnight, and undoes that scenario using time travel, and maybe some other details as well, but, that's the gist of it.

A-hem, Well...

I don't wanna say that I lost my new phone less than a week after I got it, but... 

Well, we don't know for sure that's what happened. I mean, we do have its location to within under 100 feet... you can't really call it lost if you've got that...

I thought it was just somewhere in the apartment, because that's where I remember having it last. So for sure, I've got no memories of this... it would have been Tuesday, though, judging from my memories of what outfits I've worn this week and whether it possibly could have been in my pocket at the time. I mean, I think Tuesday. Not really sure, though, like I said, just thought it was still in the apartment just under a cushion or something. Lucky I thought to check, when I couldn't find it anywhere here...

I scoured the computer lab, though, which is where the 20 meters seems to be centered around and is where it'd be anyway because that's where I would've been; it's not there, as far as I can make of it. Tried ringing it, no sound, there, nothing audible even at full volume; plus wherever it wound up it stayed, so nobody stumbled across it to turn it in to a lost and found, so I think we can safely say: when I accidentally unwittingly lost it, I must have done so very neatly, in a clever, soundproof hiding place. 

That's one of three theories, at least.

Another idea is, it's in the custodial office for some reason, which is right next to the computer lab. Maybe Ryan brought it in in his lunchbag without knowing it, and it's in his locker or something. This theory is appealing for several reasons: it explains why there's nothing audible going on when you try to ring it, because it's ringing behind a thick door during a time when nobody'd be in (i.e., daylight hours); it explains why it hasn't been taken to the lost and found, because nobody's found it because it's not lying around in some public space; it explains why it wound up in the Spori when I don't remember taking it there, because I didn't take it there, my brother the early-morning janitor did. Ryan denies taking it in, but I find this the most logical of the explanations. Plus it takes the blame off of me for having lost my phone for the third time. So, a lot of pretty good reasons all around.

Either that, or it's been taken up by the rapture, and is actually floating somewhere above the Spori. The technological singularity is surely upon us...

Hey Snackers!

I guess I've got a YouTube channel now? Or rather, Pretzels does. Alongside the, Facebook and the Instagram and the, whatever the heck else there was; man I don't know, building and maintaining an e-following is tough. Maybe one of these days I'll actually post anything on my Instagram... maybe one of these days I'll find my phone that I may do so using the Instagram app...

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwofQn9ZA7WLMHNRJzyz4Bg

https://www.facebook.com/PretzelsPrints/

https://www.instagram.com/theprancingprinter/

So far it doesn't look like anyone's watched the one video that I've got up (YouTube tells of these things. YouTube knows...), which is sort of an announcement and show-off of the printing equipment I got. In Business for the Professional Artist class this morning, they really seemed to like it, I mean like, really seemed to like it, predicted it'd go viral and vowed to help it along... it's been a few whole hours already, though, you'd figure if it were going to go viral it would have done so by now...

Dang it lack of lav mike, I blame you...

I'm to report how many hits it's got, Tuesday morning, the next and last time that class meets...

Spoiler-Man

So there's a new Spider-Man trailer out apparently and I'm all, oh crap. I've seen vague glimpses now, of, screenshots or posters or whatever those were, just from wandering into places on the internet I didn't know there'd be spoilers; and now I know things I'd rather not, like, Peter Parker is sometimes dressed as Spider-Man but sometimes not, and, he probably swings around I don't know. (For those of you just joining us, I am meticulously striving to avoid not just spoilers for the upcoming MCU Spider-Man film, but indeed any knowledge of it whatever other than that it exists, because of course I'm going to go see it, so why would I need to know anything about it at all?)

In the grocery store today, though, I saw that they've got Guardians of the Galaxy 2-themed tortilla chips, which is not a place you'd expect to find information about an upcoming movie. Avoiding spoilers for another 4 months is going to be... probably getting in my information design final is going to be easier than that.

Speaking of that project, I worked on it for maybe all of 15 minutes today, if we're being generous. Wednesdays and Mondays, man... Thursday starting some weekend thing the way it does, I should be good to start going more in-depth, but... man I need to pull more all-nighters or something, but I've been going to bed at a reasonable hour and everything, lately, and that cannot be good for you.

Five Facile Finals and One Big Onerous One

I'm still severely undermotivated to do my final project in information design. It's been a swell class and all, but I HATE MESHUGGAH WORKBOOKS SO BAD and that's basically what I need to do. Each module is designed to take 9-12 hours to do, and there are more hours than that in a day... I really don't want to work all day on these, those. I've got five modules to finish. I could conceivably have everything caught up in five days. You know, conceivably. Taking 15 minutes on a task is good, just, get started on it, that's the tough part... this week we're supposed to be finishing up on our designs, and then there's one module after that where people test things or whatever, and then we're done! 

My finals in my other classes are:

• Business for the Professional Artist- make a video advertising yourself. Also there's an open-note, take-home quiz.
• Motion Design- oh yeahhh shoooot there's a final; better complete that (I'm pretty sure it was actually due by Monday, but he extended it for those of us who spaced it, which is a few people.)
• Restoration of the Gospel- A class contributions report. Just, write a few paragraphs on how well you contributed to class.
• Mesoamerican Art- after we finish talking about the Aztecs, which we're starting tomorrow, there's a test on them; then, on the last day of class, there's a paper that we either have to write in class, or have written beforehand that we can just turn in (there are three questions that the final can be on, of which two will be selected for us to choose to write one on; if you write two papers beforehand, you just walk into class and turn in the one that the final question actually turns out to be.)
• Art Seminar- there's a final seminar on Thursday, graphic designer Muffin Grayson. Attend that and take notes, just like for any other seminar.

Dramabug, Dramabug, ooh Drama Dramabug...

Don't really have time for to blog right now; I'm actually doing stuff for my project- well strike that, right now I'm actually getting ready for bed. I'd meant to turn in early, but I'm also working on a side project or two for other classes, by which I mean I'm test printing a bit because there was something due in Business for the Professional Artist which I need to turn in by the end of the semester, which for that class is a week from tomorrow. The totality of my info design stuff is due next Friday, the actual end of the semester, and I've got a lot to do for that meanwhile, so yeah. Too busy to really talk much here.

I said I can't watch videos, but I am allowed to check out what other people are watching over their shoulders for a bit. This is something Ryan shows around, which he was shown on his job and which they apparently reference a lot there. Bravest Warriors is one of the things that I'd been watching until I stopped watching stuff, even. I'm somewhere in the middle of season two. Just two weeks to go till I can pick that back up again if I want... woo...

Grade Stuff and Three-Player Playtesting

You wanna know something terrible? Checking my grades, I'm actually getting mostly A's and B's, in, all of my classes, which means that I'm not totally choking, which means that the stuff I'm behind in I don't really have an excuse to fail on. Isn't that the worst? It's just awful, for me.

And I actually finally figured out what I'm supposed to be doing in my big Information Design project that's been going on for about a third of the semester now! They say that online courses are somehow harder, but I shrug my shoulders firmly at that assertion.

Playing Somerset with three players:

Player	Coins at end	Points from buildings	Points from tiles	Points from spellbook	total points
Eric	5	3	11	4	23
Isaac	9	3	24	4	40
Ryan	9	3	15	4	31

Something along those lines. Ryan/Emmalynn (team) went first, then Isaac, then me. It was Isaac's first time, he went straight-out straightforward, get resources, build tiles, and got points quite handily from it; it was he who ended the game, through the purchase of his eighth tile. 

We all tied in spellbook size (I would have gotten more points than they both if I'd kept my spellbook smallest, yeah that makes sense) and likewise we all had the same number of buildings out (each building one recruitment station; does anyone ever play with all six workers?), so that doesn't really matter; and though I tried raking it points through coins, I came in last there. I tried going for a strategy using the advancement track of King Arthur's, but it's simply not worth it apparently. 

Would have helped to have any other government-track advancing tile other than the one that comes with Camelot out; the others were placed only in the endgame. Maybe that was just my stupidity and poor gameplay skills (I mean I tried to build those tiles but I was always too poor to do anything, and Isaac meanwhile by the end had amassed this trove of resources such that he could have bought any tile he felt to end the game) but having a more powerful King Arthur track would have been nice. Does anyone really play with that? because I just used it to see if there was some secret it hid, and it's better than it looks. But nope.

And this may be just me, but spells could be more powerful, I don't know. It's like there's this crazy power that's possible, but not until you've upgraded one of your workers, which won't happen till you've got the resources for it. But more power isn't the fix, I don't think, thinking about what's needed to activate the powers, the whole magic-power-hand symbol and spending crystals. Maybe crystals should be easier to get or something? Or maybe it's just me, like how I was bad in general at obtaining resources (do crystals count as a resource, by the way? It's never explained.) In general, that game just kicked my b*tt.

The first-time player winning was instructive, though. Just by going the obvious simplest strategy. Like in Dominion: sometimes there may be awesome juicy cards out there you can use to construct a nice engine for yourself and get all the points, but in the end, a lot of the time, big money is the most reliable strategy.

Maybe there should be better rewards for high-falutin-er strategies, maybe there shouldn't. Balancing a game is tough, dude. Apparently. And I read on Andrew's blog (my nephew is the best!) that even more tweaks have been made since the last tweaks that were made, so, that should be interesting; I'm genuinely curious.

Givd 9vtdC and All That

(Jamming randomly on the keyboard hoping it inspires a good post name, but it turns out not to.)

So conference is in a week, which I guess makes tomorrow Fast Sunday? I've more-or-less fasted each Sunday this month, already, except for the first Sunday which is when Fast Sunday would usually be held so it's just all kinds of crazy.

Sunday March 5- Stake Conference
Sunday March 12- Fast Sunday gets moved here
Sunday March 19- still looking for my phone, I fast for that
Sunday March 26- Fast Sunday gets moved here from next week

Looking forward to President Uchtdorf; haven't heard him speak in the longest time, practically since last conference.

Meanwhile, there's finally a new page of Furry Experience up. I continue to interview Ellen Natalie (told you about how I'm doing that, right?) It's a lot slower going than if it were over the phone like I'm used to, of course (if this were over the phone, at this length, we'd be well into record-setting territory on interview length,) but phone's just not a reliable way to get in touch with some people apparently...

...That wasn't meant to be a self-commentary. Honestly!

(So yeah my cardigan's got shallow pockets; it's the only one of my sweaters that have pockets at all. I've got two coats. both of them heavier and winterier and both with their buttons on the ladies' side so I don't wear them anyway; that leaves my sport coat(s), which does have pockets nice and deep enough for carrying around a lot of stuff but I'm tired of people commenting how sharp I look/ asking why I'm dressed so fancy, when I wear it.)

But This Stuff Going On???

I'm going to need a darkroom if I'm going to prep any screens- wherein, you coat the silkscreen mesh in a light-sensitive material, which hardens upon exposure to light (and so your image positive blocks out the parts you don't want hardened (thus, the parts that wash out, thus, the parts that ink can pass through.)) The bathroom is, I mean it's a fairly good place for it, you got your wash right there, and it's pretty dust-free in there (you need to let the screen sit for a bit, and the more dust that gets on it in that time the more pinholes you need to fill back in later.) But the lights there, they're not red. Looked for gels today, went to Porter's zip quick, a few minutes before it closed for the day, to see if they've got any, but they don't. They've got see-through colored spray-paint, but I don't want to turn the lights in there red permanently, you know?

I signed up for an intro to lithography class today- same timeslot as Advanced Typography, the class that, you know, my whole schedule had been built around for a few semesters until it turned out it wasn't even being offered this semester but next, and which I signed up for late and am pretty far down in the waitlist for- I'm clearly not holding my breath, and, besides, maybe this lithography class itself won't pan out either; it's under threat of termination because there's too few people signed up. If they can do that, maybe the Advanced Typography will add another section due to high demand? is one thought.

But, all told, next semester... without advanced typography, I've got, one class, in my actual (graphic design) emphasis? And that one's not even on campus, but online. So... heck, man, I don't know. At least I've got a figure drawing class, required of all art majors, which I'm finally taking? (It's either that or head/hands drawing, actually. And the models here wear clothes for some reason? Go figure.)

My heart rate's at 47 bpm right now. Sweet.

The Great Wimpy Deer Mystery

Doing some market research on what can make good t-shirt design (lots of things!) and what can make crappy t-shirt design (lots of things!) First off, I think I may have discovered the single greatest shirt of all time, take notes:

via Ebay.com

Everything. Just, everything.

Meanwhile, though, I have stumbled across a t-shirt mystery. A mystery that applies not only to t-shirts, but printed garments in general. And that mystery is: what the heck is up with glitter-hoofed 3/4-Bambi and the half-image of the double-exposed naked woman?

http://www.aliexpress.com/ Not the only image or textile the picture's been printed on, but the one I found that shows the image on front most clearly; obviously because this one's totally fake just to show the image clearly, but other photos do exist of this image on long shirts/short dresses, that kind of thing, and, it's most certainly real.

The more I delve into it, the less the answers make sense. I mean, the world is full of many amazing, unique and unjustly obscure artists, who sometimes get lucky/stolen from and have their works printed on things, so that would maybe explain why the shirt is being made by a different company each iteration I can find of it, but: why this image? What the heck is going on here? Who thought this would be a good idea? It's certainly eye-catching, but, whaaat? Is the woman facing one way with her upper half and the woman facing the other way with her legs, is that from the same painting, just taken and swapped for some reason? What's the deal with what appears to be a black orchid on a "multiply" layer? Did Disney approve of any of this? Did the artist who made this image approve of any of this? Yes? Then how about the version where the image is made from sequins? Certainly that doesn't violate any moral rights?:

http://www.aliexpress.com

Alright, even if that's all legally kosher, it gets weirder. I think is the word you'd use. There's also an apparent rip-off version of the same thing (as if one retailer distributing one version of the image idea weren't inexplicable enough!) It's the same basic thing, only Bambi's whole now, the artwork's gotten a whole lot worse, and the naked lady is gone I guess? There's still some vague memory of the original orchid, almost as though the designer sensed that it was important though couldn't articulate why...

http://www.ringsandtings.com/

Geez'l'weez, it's like how plastic Chinasaurs keep on getting more and more and more abstract as the various manufacturers all rip off from one another, until there's virtually no resemblance left to the original (usu. 1959 Marx tyrannosaurus) figure...

UPDATE: Alright, apparently Google has this function -I mean I know about it but I apparently keep on forgetting about it, which is weird because it's treated me so kindly in the past- that allows you to plop in an image into the image search bar and it'll tell you what the picture's of and everything. The shirts above are all (knockoff? retail?) of original Givenchy designs from their Winter 14/15 collection. Spring 17 is seeing a re-release of the same design, which would maybe explain the design's resurgence in the knockoff market? The real deal is... expensive, I'll put forth that much. Still doesn't explain where Givenchy's designer got the original idea, and it certainly still leaves the Korean comic-sans thing a mystery, but now I know where to go if I feel like spending $565 on a cotton t-shirt...

Peter Wocken's Ambaadasssssor Song

Tuesday the 7th I and another member of my Business for the Professional Artist class (though I was the one who arranged the call, he wound up with more interview questions than I) had a teleconference that devolved into just a phone call (bad connection) so phone call mostly, interview with board game graphic designer Peter Wocken.

My graphic design plan at one point was to do board games before switching/settling on the serigraphy thing, so I figured I'd solicit a professional's opinion on the lay of the land. The other class member had actually gotten accepted as an illustrator at a startupish sort of board game company, so I invited him; members of the board game design workshop were also invited but none of them could make it. The phone call portion lasted 45 minutes, from 1:15ish to just before 2:00; the failed Skype attempts before that had been going on for, well the Skype call had initially been scheduled for 12:30 pm, so, about that same length of time.

I recorded the entire phone call portion of the interview; fortunately I always both record my interviews and also take notes, because my phone's kind of 'WOL. I'd been going to transcribe the whole phone portion to post up, but 45 minutes of convo would take a while to transcribe so I was putting it off, and now that I've accepted that I may never see that phone again I'm just posting up the transcript of my notes instead, spelling mistakes and all (some of which are actually fairly amusing ("stationary"!))

He's on Freelance 3.0 by now. FREELANCE 2.0- Temp agencies work w/ a bunch of company. Best Buy→ FFG.
RPG→ everyone (FFG local) be availible when op shows its face.
Connection→ just "contact us!" and tell them your story/portfolio or GAME ART DIRECTOR. Always looking for fresh blood so graphic design over illustration pays better. \ Until they're real publishers (you can work with newbies) don't go accepting. They don't know the industry and might make unrealistic demands. Publishers w/ in-house artists is Plaid Hat- Fernanda Suarez.
FFG art director- ??? Works directly w/ graphic design departments. AEG- Send to Peter. forwarded emails to John Goodenough (super awesome dude.)
Freelance & full-time job don't mesh very well. Discipline- your brain will be mush at end of 8-9 hours, so you need to force yourself.
Board game industry super difficult to compete- people all over the world with lower rent etc. do well. Have savings to fall back on in freelance, have portfolio- job something creative.
Work on what you enjoy- you'll find work in it. Peter chose to go superspecialist, and good thing people are getting into it. France "how do I rebrand myself" so he went specific, be seen as a specialist.
Get a good contract- people will take advantage of you. Read over contracts super specifically or have them sign your contract. Have agreements in writing (email is fine) invoices & contracts must be on-brand
Cons are great use of your time. The more cons you attend, the more optimal. Peter as a graphic designer doesn't booth, he's mobile. Get on dudes' calendars. GenCon & BGGCon.
GenCon- get 'em between schedules. BGGCon smaller, last con of year.
Now Peter Wocken is big enough for people to seek him out. Have business cards/post cards? Or ping everyone on your portfolio? Either way have contact info on every page, as part of stationary. Have template but customize per client. ALWAYS DEADLINES! BE NICER THAN GOOD! Be good ambadassors for creativity. Be pleasurable to work with.

I like that. The word is "ambadassor" from now on.

Dense Mech-abre

Technology is dumb. T-shirts are awesome. I went to bed early today thinking it'd be just a quick nap and then I'd be refreshed for more homework, but instead of being refreshed right now I just want to sleep some more. I could probably wake up early in the morning tomorrow; I think I'm game for that. I should focus on animation class more; information design's not the only thing I'm running behind in...

I was going to go on, but I have no idea what I'd been going to say. Forgive me, for I have sinned (I remember what I was going to say now): we're doing, as a family, another no-sugary-treat challenge, and I stress-ate three cookies and 1.2 poptarts.

Late Late Lateness

Checking device manager, it says that the phone was last "used" 12:48 am, yesterday morning, but last synced 10:07 am yesterday morning. Phones aren't used when they're off. Phones aren't synced when they're off. I think my phone is missing because it was stolen. Maybe I did drop it somewhere, but, someone definitely picked it up and is being very naughty with it. Maybe they used it as a burner, and it is now trashed. I don't know. Is there insurance against theft, like, is that covered by the warranty? And does that insurance also cover time and sanity lost through attempted recovery of the phone? Because I had plans, and it was gonna be great, and I was gonna at least begin catching up. Not that I'm using that as an excuse, but... I really was, genuinely excited to get on doing stuff early for a change.

I played hooky, halfway, for the first time in my life today. Today being the last day to turn in assignments for Mesoamerican art class, I spent the time from the end of that class (which got out a few minutes early, like 9:35 instead of 10:00, so I had a few extra minutes to get a head start on it) basically all the way through when it became due at 4:30 when Professor Raish leaves his office and he accepts no more papers, writing up a field guide to Tikal- site guides are worth up to 50 points, I needed maybe 20, plus I already spent the time before class writing up a review of the ancient Pre-Columbian game of Patolli which could be worth up to 10 points, so, maybe Mesoamerican art class might be the one class this semester I may even pass. Well, that and religion class probably. And maybe I did alright in Concentration. And I've attended all the art seminars this semester, so I should be doing fine in that too. But... my two lab classes this semester, they're in a poor way. And I'm not sure how well I'm doing in Business for the Professional Artist class (plan C.5 worked today, at least, so no auto-fail for not making a call, for me.)

I'm feeling very dizzy right now.

At least Brother Thomas for Restoration class is off in D.C. so there's no class this week there, but for motion design class I haven't even finished the last project we've been working on, which sounds all too familiar by this point. That class starts at 2:00, gets out at 4:45, so I attended the last 15 minutes of it at least- went over some very complicated-looking 3D animation program today, and it's the only time they're going over it, but at least it's so complicated that he's also going over everything again in a video online, so who needs to be there in person?

I don't want to say I can't wait for the semester to be over, because the semester still going on is my only chance of catching up. I really, really want this semester to continue.

I'm not sure when it was- maybe Tuesday I think, but definitely sometime last week- but I finally signed up for classes for next semester! Turns out that that had opened up at the beginning of the month, but I had had this stupid hold thing which I think I've told you about, and it was still there even when I completed the requirements they'd told me would remove the hold... I attempted to sign up for classes anyway, because seriously that should have done it, and lo! even with the hold claiming to be on, I could get into classes. Or, onto the waitlist for classes, because I was a full half-month behind everyone else in signing up (yeah, that was it, it was between classes on Wednesday. The 15th, the same number of students waitlisted in front of me for Advanced Typography class!)

Makes me wonder, if that hold wasn't really there though it said it was, was the hold ever on in the first place, and could I have been signing up for classes this whole time...

So! Meanwhile, today when not actively writing my site guide for Mesoamerica class (taking mental breaks from it so that I wouldn't go crazy, etc,) I helped out a little with Ryan, assembling the screen print press. He did it mostly by himself (he wanted to, and we're not done but he wants to be the one to finish it.) It looked like the equipment had all come in, but we had none of the supplies, no ink or anything- I called in, but I had to call back, leave two messages stating and then confirming that everything was okay, when the final package, somehow separated from its siblings, arrived at, I think around 5:30 if I remember correctly, but the UPS website, having registered all 9 packages arriving at the same time, isn't giving me any specific time for this package that reportedly arrived with the rest.

At least it got in, though it was late. That's, the story of my life right now. Late, late, late, and the only way I could get a big paper turned on time in is through being two and a half hours late to another class.