Sea SVC Vacant

In case anyone was confused that I stopped blogging here

seasvcvacant — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 23:22:45 +0000

I lost interest in blogging for a time, and lost even more interest in explaining what Sea SVC Vacant meant.

My interest in blogging has been renewed in a slightly different way and exists at a new site:

zackbites.wordpress.com

I know how to embed links. Really, I do.

seasvcvacant — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 20:32:36 +0000

Well this wasn’t really pointed out to me, but every now and then I do enjoy reviewing my entries to look for little blunders and snafus. I make all kinds of grammatical errors. Spelling, not as much, but there are some. But when I imbed a link that ends in .cocm, well. . . that ain’t right.

So if you tried to click over to my friend Tiana’s blog, you should be able to do that. Also check out her more politically charged one as well. If you’re not crying and angry by the end of the day, then I haven’t done my job properly.

-Z

Has it been a month?

seasvcvacant — Fri, 22 May 2009 19:53:54 +0000

It’s funny to think there was a time that I updated this thing every day. Go figure I’ve been too busy experiencing all kinds of things that would be perfect to write about but once I’m done riding the wave of excitement, writer’s block tends to set in.

So I turned to drugs.

Herbs, actually. Gingko Biloba, liquid form, measured with an eyedropper, 2 times a day, 4-5 on the weekends. This is not normally the way I solve my problems, but after a little online browsing I decided to give this a try.

It’s like I can actually see the doors in my head opening, thoughts I’ve been wanting to share peaking out with a clarity I’ve not had access to in years, pretty amazing in that way.

Of course, the purpose of this treatment is so I can be more prolific on writing music, especially now that I have a very talented wordsmith by the name of Tiana to write me some words for the playing and the singing. We call them “lyrics” in the business.

This is why I never followed through with the “Song-of-the-Week” idea (much like the Nightmare reviews that I never followed up on, but that was for different reasons. . . a guy can only rape his own childhood so many times).

But as the doors continue to open, things will be shared. Wonderful, and, if things should go bad, painful things. But who needs yet another blog of angst and depression? I’m a bit old to go Emo.

-Z

It’s Friday, a few random thoughs out of boredom

seasvcvacant — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 19:55:32 +0000

My morning ritual is pretty standard: Start the alarm at 6:40 and hit snooze a few times so that by 7:20 I’m ever so slightly more rested and still have enough time to get ready for work. But today that hitting of the snooze button had me waking up at 8:05. Not plenty of time to get ready.

Of course, I was less than 15 minutes early to work, but that’s not the point.

The cool thing about my bus ride is that it takes the express lane on the freeway and then pulls into the bus tunnel, so it has practically no traffic to contend with. The thing that’s not cool about getting out at the bus station is that the escalator is single file. Those who know me probably know I’ve a bit of a pet peeve about people standing on escalators during peak commuting hours. I’ve calmed on that issue a lot, but it’s still a bit annoying to me when some punked out hungover couple practically sprints to be the first one off the bus only to slowly stagger and wobble their way over to the escalator where they make the rest of us stand. A minor petty annoyance, but narcissists bother me.

But, despite all those things, this has been a really good day. My company’s monthly casual Friday, no complaints there. Perfect weather for drinking, looks like it’s going to be a beautiful weekend. And, like with any good weekend, I’m going into it with no plans.

Well, that’s not completely true. Saturday at Midnight I’m going to Cinemapocalypse: a travelling exhibition of exploitation films, b-movies, that kind of thing.

Oh, also, did you all know that Salvador Dali made a film? Yeah, “Un Chien Andalou”. It’s very bizarre and I don’t quite get it, but it’s pretty amazing to watch and I think you all should. If for no better reason than the extended boob-groping sequence. YouTube seems to have the video in two parts. Sadly, though, my work computer doesn’t have speakers so I have no clue how the sound quality will work out. But it’s free, whereas I’ve $0.20 in late fees.

-Z

Back From Vacation (posted nearly 2 weeks later)

seasvcvacant — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 23:30:24 +0000

I typed the following around 2 in the morning on 3/23. In my state of exhaustion it’s likely I didn’t publish it as I thought I had. I have things to add about this vacation but now let me just post my little sigh of relief, late as it may be.

I finally understand why people enjoy Vancouver (the one with the maple leaves and the kilometers). Such an awesome place, and it’s also the first time I’ve actually gone on a trip out of town for vacationy purposes as a single man in the better part of a decade.

I had some fun. Maybe not quite as much debauchery as one would hope for but there’s always tomorrow. At least I feel refreshed, though I’m starting to figure out that I’m going to feel like battered hell tomorrow if I don’t get some sleep.

Will write soon, promise.

-Z

Surface Effect Art by Norman LeBret has a new site

seasvcvacant — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 22:21:20 +0000

Several months ago, I made this post about some really cool artwork. I was shocked as well as pleased to see how many hits the post has been getting, but also I’ve been noticing his website getting clicked on a lot as well.

Then I found out that it stopped existing.

But fear not, I did some checking around and the new place to go is here.

Okay, now here’s the confusing bit: If you want to actually see his full gallery of artwork, don’t click on the part that says “Gallery” but rather click on the artist’s portrait where you will be treated to a hefty little collection.

User friendliness is awesome.

-Z

A pleasently unexpected side effect

seasvcvacant — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 23:31:57 +0000

So in my last post I talked about my new music project. I will remind that while on paper it sounds like a pile of awesome, I’m also extremely rusty and the first pieces are. . . well, rough. Due to my only having a single day this week in which to sit down and do any work (and considering I’ll be out of town on the Sunday at which I would be required to do a single miss), I will be missing one week. But I suppose that doesn’t matter as I’ll probably have at least three or four of them completed by the time I purchase the space upgrade. Maybe more. Who knows?

But none of that is what I’d like to talk about just now, but rather the side effect of said project.

In my life, especially the last few years, I’ve had a tendency to second guess myself. Like, a lot. Emails go unanswered or take hours to write when 10 minutes would do, the blog goes unupdated, music gets unwritten, the list goes on.

Well it’s been about two weeks. And while it’s tough to conjur specific examples, at least not ones that would sound groundbreaking an huge, let me just say that I have experienced what could only be described as a tremendous surge of confidence ever since starting this little experiment. Once I force myself to just say or do stuff that I can’t simply take back I instantly feel many times better.

Anywho, just felt the need to share that.

-Z

I’ve been vacant for a while, let’s try a comeback. Also a project to report.

seasvcvacant — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 18:24:04 +0000

So it’s been a while since I’ve made a post here and an even longer while since I’ve made regular updates.

I’d like to change that. I can’t promise I will, but my intentions are in the right place. I think.

This has been a crazy few months with my work all a flutter over economic turmoil followed by me losing my job followed by me ending up not losing my job. . .

*long sigh of relief*

Okay so I’ve really got nothing to talk about or review or what not, but I’d like to mention a new project that I’m working on.

I call myself a composer but I haven’t really produced anything new and certainly nothing worthwhile for the better part of 3 years. I’ve figured out that the reason for this is my uncanny ability to prematurely self-edit, thereby killing any decent ideas before they can evolve into something better.

That brings me to my project. I will write and record a new song every week. Eventually (in the next month or two) I will purchase the space upgrade so that I can upload these tiny gems for your enjoyment.

The idea is that I will force myself to create and not look back. No matter what, even if it’s garbage, I will have an uploadable audio file by Sunday and delete any project files in order to prevent myself from going back and tweaking. Some will be good, many will be not. In doing this I hope to strengthen trust in my own intuition as I pursue more serious and ambitious project.

Why upload them? Well, what better motivation to get better then to know that just about anyone out there could have a listen? Also I value your feedback.

-Z

Vote to have part of the International Space Station named after everyone’s favorite firefly!!

seasvcvacant — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 06:38:34 +0000

That’s right, Node 3 should really be named Serenity. So vote. Do eeeet.

http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/name_ISS/index.html

The Alien 3 that could have been

seasvcvacant — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 20:47:44 +0000

You know, I personally feel that David Fincher’s (heavily compromised) vision of Alien 3 wasn’t bad. In fact, given that the amount of turmoil and heartache that went into that production (Fincher almost quit making films,) I’d say it was actually a pretty good movie. The drab, bleak atmosphere turned a lot of people off but I rather liked it, nothing is safe about the world created.

But people hate Alien 3 for whatever reason. Personally I like to focus my hate at Alien Resurrection where you had an amazing Director (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Amelie) and a script by my favorite writer (Joss Whedon, Buffy/Angel/Firefly) that contained not a shred of anything resembling good storytelling. But hey, look at this nice tangent I’ve created.

So at some point in 1990, Alien 3, was in the hands of Vincent Ward, director of What Dreams May Come. From what I’ve read it seems that the setting was to be a church colony, floating about in space. Designing this world was artist/architect Lebbeus Woods. Scans of his design for said floating colony reside here.

I dunno, maybe it’s just because they’re sketches, but color me underwhelmed. I miss the Alien series as it once existed. Sadly I think if the franchise will ever survive it’ll be by way of a complete reboot which seems all the rage these days (I moan, but I loved Batman Begins and Casino Royale, plus Star Trek looks amazing).

-Z