Another Here

TMoP: Day 30

nospam@example.com (Brenden Mecleary) — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 08:00:00 -0400

Today is the last day of the Month of Pictures, or whatever I decided to call it. I think it’s safe to call this month a complete fucking failure. I just looked through the photos I’ve posted so far on Flickr: only one has 30 views, one has 20 views, and the rest have less than that. Most of them have around five views, and of those five, probably one or two are from me. If the measure of a photo is whether or not anyone wants to look at it – because who gives a fuck about photos nobody wants to look at – then it’s pretty clear that I took a bunch of lousy photos in Europe.

Since this is the final day of the month, I’m going to post the remainder of the photos all today, for both of you who want to see them. I won’t comment much on any of them, since what would be the point.

I’m leaving town on the 2nd, so if I do a YoE project next month at all, I won’t start it until I get back next week. Right now I don’t see any reason to continue the YoE, due to the aforementioned turd-polishing issue. My problems are too fundamental for a bunch of stupid one-off projects to be worthwhile. And if I’m not going to keep doing the YoE, there doesn’t seem to be much point doing the blog at all any more either.

If you have the opportunity, I urge you to take one of the guided tours of the Hackenberg fortification of the Maginot line. Bring a warm jacket.

TMoP: Day 27

nospam@example.com (Brenden Mecleary) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 08:00:00 -0400

We left Amsterdam and took the train to Luxembourg.

Luxembourg is an…unusual city. There is a lot of money in Luxembourg due to some amazing tax loopholes; the kind of loopholes CFOs masturbate to. Some of the European Commission is headquartered there as well. Those seem to be Luxembourg’s principal claims to fame right now.

If I were to describe to you a place where people worked but didn’t actually live, and many of those people fled to neighboring countries on the weekends, the city you would picture in your head is probably not that far off from what Luxembourg is actually like.

The population of the city is around 84,000 people, according to Wikipedia. Now, I’ve been through cities that are around 30,000 people, and Luxembourg is much more than three times their size. The population density is even lower than the pissant little city I live in. You can walk through the center of town at 7:00 in the evening and be totally alone on street after street. It’s like walking through the set of a disaster movie where all of humanity has been wiped out.

Even the stores are what you’d expect for a place that’s home to nobody, but through which an enormous amount of wealth flows: lots of shops selling jewelery, expensive clothes, that sort of thing. Another thing about the stores is that Luxembourg seems to pride itself on having crap service. I didn’t really take Adam seriously when he said the service in the restaurants there was bad, but he wasn’t kidding at all. You could walk in ready to drop $400 on dinner and they just don’t give a shit.

At this point, I should mention one place we ate that absolutely did not have terrible service, called Star of Asia. It’s a family-run Indian restaurant which serves fantastic food, and is one of the friendliest restaurants I’ve been in, probably ever. Maybe it was just because my expectations were so low after a few days in Luxembourg, but I loved the place. If you’re in or going to be in Luxembourg, definitely go there for dinner at least once.

I guess it sounds like I hate Luxembourg or something, which isn’t true. I’m just baffled by it. It is very clean and it’s a lovely place to walk around, but it’s like there isn’t any there there.

I can’t comment much on the rest of the country of Luxembourg outside the capital, except to say that it’s very beautiful.

The following day we got some bikes, took the train to a city on the border of Luxembourg and Germany whose name I forget, then rode into Trier. The scenery was great and the weather was perfect for the ride.

A structure we saw on the way. I believe Adam said it’s the original structure the Romans used, still in service to manage grape growing or something.

Very scenic. All along the river we saw the stereotypical image of small villages nestled away in the European countryside.

The Porta Nigra in Trier.

Inside the Porta Nigra.

Some ruins in Trier. It’s a very old city.

Adam’s wife wanted a scanner, and since there’s a store that sells electronics in Trier (a tourist destination and the oldest city in Germany), but none in Luxembourg (a modern city practically vomiting up money), she called Adam and asked him to bring a scanner back.

How does one transport a scanner on a bicycle?

Duct tape, naturally.

Hey look, Portugal won.

Mind getting the fuck out of the street, lads?

TMoP: Day 26

nospam@example.com (Brenden Mecleary) — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 08:00:00 -0400

And so, we arrived in Amsterdam. By this time I had really had it with carrying my camera around, so I took very few pictures here. Plus, it makes the hookers mad.

Amsterdam was the first city where we didn’t see any Starbucks at all. We saw them every 15 feet or so in London, and we even saw a few in Paris, but after that we didn’t see any. We didn’t go in to any, obviously – there were better options available – but it was interesting to keep track.

Adam in our hotel room. Fabulous!

Yes, that’s a glass door to the bathroom and shower. The entire sink was glass too, actually, which is not nearly as cool as it sounds.

Adam swears they asked for double beds, and technically there are two mattresses on the bed, so I guess I have to believe him. But if they managed to push the mattresses any closer together, they’d actually intersect one another.

I have a new rule about hotel rooms: don’t share them with anyone you aren’t fucking.

The following morning, we took a 90-minute boat tour of the central part of the city. It was a good time, but overall it seems like you could get almost the same experience – minus the live tour guide and plus a lot more people – from the canal bus, for which you can buy a 24-hour pass and go from place to place. They even have recorded information about the city that they play, which is nearly identical to what we heard on the tour.

It looked to me like driving the canal bus is probably the coolest fucking job in the world. I asked the driver if it was, and he said no, but I think he was lying. I want that job.

I amsterdam what I amsterdam.

Rijksmuseum in the background. We didn’t go inside.

The Van Gogh museum. I believe that’s actually the rear section of it, which was closed when we were there. The main collection of paintings was in another building. As a long-time admirer of Van Gogh’s work, I enjoyed going to the museum, which also contained a bunch of his paintings, a good accounting of his life, and a collection of works that influenced and were influenced by Van Gogh.

I didn’t see either Starry Night or Self-portrait with a bandaged ear, which surprised me, since they’re two of his most well-known paintings. I guess they are housed elsewhere, according to those links.

Obligatory (?) photo of a canal.

Adam and I split up for the second day in Amsterdam. I forget what he did, but I went on a bicycle tour out into the countryside, which was fantastic. I think the whole thing was about six hours or so, and it started and ended directly across the street from our hotel. It was definitely one of the high points of the trip for me. If you’re ever going to Amsterdam, I really recommend you check it out. See if you can schedule a tour on a day when Bart is the guide.

No pictures from the bicycle tour, because I left my camera in the hotel (on purpose). This was also where I got sunburned. I figured if the past week of walking around outside hadn’t cooked me, neither would this. I was wrong. Wear sunblock.

TMoP: Day 25

nospam@example.com (Brenden Mecleary) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 08:00:00 -0400

I forget what all we did after seeing the Louvre, but we did go later in the day to see this thing, which looks to me like the French telling the English that they don’t have a monopoly on goofy street art.

This may have also been the afternoon when we went to a bookstore to look at comics. I’d heard that the French are really into their comics, which intrigued me since I didn’t know they had such a large comic scene, so I had to go check them out while we were there. There was a whole variety of stuff – some great, some not – but overall I was impressed. I bought a couple books to bring home with me. All the books we saw – except the imported manga and American comics – were in hardcover, and larger format than what I’m used to.

The next day, we decided to check out the Galeries Lafayette, as recommended by our guide book. It would have been nice if the writer had been considerate enough to tell us it’s nothing but crap for chicks. We stayed about as long as it took to take this photograph.

We then went to Montmarte, saw the basilica, and did the circuit around the inside. After that we went to the Dali museum a few blocks away, which was much more interesting. Then we made our way back down the hill, during which Adam showed me some “famous” restaurant – so famous I can’t even remember its name – that was apparently in a movie or something.

Later in the afternoon we headed back to the East side of the street to see the canal St-Martin, which was pleasant enough. We watched a ship go through one of the locks and headed back to find a bar to watch the football game.

The final morning in Paris we went to the Musee d’Orsay, then walked by the cathedral on the islands on the way back. We’d been one or two blocks away from it several times, but didn’t get over to actually see it until then. It was crowded and we didn’t have a lot of time, so we didn’t go inside.

By the time we left Paris, I had seen enough museums to last me the rest of my life. I checked over my guide book a few more times to see if there was anything it recommended that we skipped, but it was mostly chock full of museums. I refuse to believe that the only interesting thing to see in Paris is museums, so if you’re going to go, I recommend spending a little more time than I did checking out the guide book you’re going to buy.

TMoP: Day 24

nospam@example.com (Brenden Mecleary) — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 08:00:00 -0400

The following day, we went to the Louvre. 9 Euro to get into that place is the deal of a lifetime. We probably spent at least four hours in there, and if I knew jack squat about what we were looking at, we’d have probably spent the entire day. Regardless, I took a few dozen photos, so I’m only posting a sample here.

You enter the museum via the pyramid there. I was expecting to wait forever in line to get tickets, but in fact we just walked right up and got them in no time from the automated machines. There wasn’t any line at all.

A statue of St. Joan. There’s a huge, multi-level courtyard with many statues of this style. I really dug them, but Adam didn’t seem interested, so he took a rest while I wandered around and took a bunch of photos.

Inside the Napoleon Apartment. The whole thing is decked out like this. You kind of get numb to it, but if you stop and look at any one individual item – say, a clock – and examine the craftsmanship that went into creating it, then consider that a similar level of work went into every single thing in every room you’re walking through, it’s really remarkable.

The presentation of the Mona Lisa is more interesting than the painting itself, because it’s so patently ridiculous. There’s this enormous free-standing wall in the middle of the room, with this tiny little painting mounted on it and hundreds of people shoving to the front, trying to get photographs or whatever, completely ignoring the dozens of other works of art surrounding them in the very same room.

The whole setup is so absurd that I desperately want to believe it’s a big joke by the people running the museum. Sadly, I don’t think that’s the case, and that they set up this one little painting as an object of worship in absolute seriousness.

I forget the title of this image or who painted it, but if I remember the description correctly, it was a modern interpretation of classical paintings. I include it only because I was intrigued by the face of the sick girl in the middle of the picture.

When you’ve got 45 paintings to do and only one canvas, there’s only one thing to do.

One of the things that impressed me the most about the museum was how much of the contents were not behind glass or any real sort of protection at all. Putting that level of trust in the visitors is something I wouldn’t even think of doing.

I couldn’t help but think of the Centre Pompidou the day before, in which nearly every lame-ass exhibit had a rope around it ordering you not to get any closer. Visiting the Louvre just made the egos of all those pathetic little “modern artists” back in Pompidou look even more overinflated than they already did.

I think we got out of the museum around 2:30. We wanted to go get something to eat, but finding a restaurant that was open was difficult.

After all, it was lunch time.

Ms. Lagarde, you’re fighting a losing battle.

TMoP: Day 23

nospam@example.com (Brenden Mecleary) — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 08:00:00 -0400

Still on the same day as the photos I posted on Friday…

The Arc de Triomphe. It’s much bigger in real life than I expected. We didn’t realize there’s an underground walkway you can use to get to the center of the roundabout – at least, I read later that there is one – we just saw people running through traffic and decided we didn’t want to get right up next to it that badly.

Obligatory photo of the Eiffel Tower.

Upon arriving at the base of the tower, we spotted one line that was shorter than the others. Only after we were in the line did we realize why it was so much shorter.

Here’s a tip: if you’re ever in France, “escalier” means “staircase”.

Obligatory photo from the Eiffel Tower, after obligatory 10-minute rest from climbing all those steps.

Mad props to all the old people we saw taking the stairs up and down the tower, though. I think there were more retirees on the stairs than young people.

A park at the far East end of the islands where Adam and I took a break in the evening. We had some really great crepes on the Eastern island in the afternoon. I can’t remember the name of the place, but it’s not like it takes all that long to see the whole island anyway.

TMoP: Day 20

nospam@example.com (Brenden Mecleary) — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 08:00:00 -0400

Tuesday saw us in Paris. The weather would not be particularly good until we got to Amsterdam a few days later, but the cloud cover took the edge off the heat, and we didn’t have any problems with rain.

Paris was where I began to get tired of carrying around my camera and my jacket. It was too warm to wear the jacket most of the time, but occasionally too cool to leave it behind.

An arch at an intersection not far from our hotel. We were on Boulevard de Sebastopol, in the “ethnic” (read: black) part of town. About a block behind the hotel was Rue St-Denis, an interesting street that featured more sex shops than a city the size of Paris actually needs – most of them creatively titled by their street number – and a few really worn-out hookers. It improved dramatically as you got closer to the Seine, with a variety of nice restaurants, cafes, and pubs.

According to Google, St-Denis is the place to go for hookers in Paris. We must have been on the wrong blocks, because we only ever saw about five – the same ones every night – and just to look at them, I don’t think they were getting a lot of business.

A plaza farther down St-Denis, closer to the river.

The Centre Pompidou, a modern art gallery on the other side of the street from St-Denis. I’m not sure I should even dignify this place with a photo. After we left the building, I was annoyed. After visiting the Louvre a day or two later, I was straight-up insulted that such a place as the Centre Pompidou even exists. Everyone even remotely associated with it should be ashamed of themselves. I want my money back.

Adam looking at the one exhibit inside Pompidou that wasn’t completely retarded – just bizarre.

TMoP: Day 19

nospam@example.com (Brenden Mecleary) — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 08:00:00 -0400

Some more photos from London:

I guess there are a lot of office buildings around the docklands. All of them look quite nice. While I’d hate to live in London, the offices themselves seem like very pleasant places to work.

They have a variety of restaurants at ground level, so people have a reason to be there outside of normal working hours. They aren’t completely deserted by 6:00 PM like many other office parks.

Inside the Tower of London. Probably not worth the 17 pounds it cost to get in, but there were a few things worth seeing. I don’t have photos, but we also went to the City of London museum later in the day, which was free and would have been worth 17 pounds.

Something that became kind of a running joke between me and Adam was that wherever you went, it was 10 pounds/euros to get in. This was particularly true in London. Just seeing the inside of St. Paul’s cathedral would have been 10 pounds (we passed). By comparison, I think the Louvre was something like 9 euro to get in, and you could easily spend hours in there seeing all sorts of different things. It made 10 pounds to get into St. Paul’s look utterly ridiculous.

I’m sure that building up there is very important, but I have absolutely no idea what it is. We saw it on the way from the Tate modern art museum, in which we actually didn’t see any exhibits. We just went to the top floor, got some coffee, and enjoyed the view.

Walking along the Thames on our way to the museum – or trying to, anyway – drove home the point about what a pedestrian-hostile place London is. Whereas Paris celebrates the Seine and makes it almost impossible to avoid having a pleasant walk alongside it, you can scarcely walk two blocks along the Thames without having to make some kind of detour, or being bombarded with construction noise and scaffolding. The walkway itself along the Thames is barely two meters wide. Maybe it’s better in other parts of the city, but where we were, it was a joke.

To be fair, London is indiscriminate – it hates cyclists and motorists as much as it hates pedestrians.

TMoP: Day 18

nospam@example.com (Brenden Mecleary) — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 08:00:00 -0400

The trip began in London. We only spent one full day there because Adam and I had both already been there before. It turned out to be the right decision.

The hotel in London. I don’t think it was terribly expensive by hotel standards, and it was a nice enough place to stay. At least the beds weren’t pushed together, unlike the other hotels. It wasn’t far from the metro, so it was easy to get around from there.

Some boats we saw on the way to meet Adam’s friend for dinner. Good guy; I actually met him back in 2003 when I visited Poland. He’s definitely moved up in the world.

The Thames at sunset after we collected Adam’s friend and went off to the restaurant. It’s kind of an ugly river, but if you catch it at the right time it looks OK.

Some goofy sculpture in the docklands.

Get it? It looks like a tree!

Someone got paid a lot of money to think of that, I’ll bet.

I'm bullshit

nospam@example.com (Brenden Mecleary) — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 08:00:00 -0400

I’ve returned. I had a good time for most of the trip. I saw a bunch of different places, watched plenty of football, got sunburned and lost some weight. While I didn’t have any revelations about what to do with myself in the future, I couldn’t avoid being reminded what a fucking joke my life is now.

I first noticed it in Paris, when I realized that nearly everyone there was traveling with their spouse or boy/girlfriend. It was clear that I didn’t belong there. Paris isn’t for people like me – it’s for normal people, people who already have someone, to go and celebrate their relationships and look forward to the future.

I’m nearly 29 and I’ve never been in a relationship. I didn’t even have a single friend during college. I’m doing work I swore for five years I’d never do again because I hate it so much, earning a humiliating salary, living in a location I don’t even like. I go to work, then I come home and hide in my apartment until it’s time to go to work again. I’ve been doing this my entire fucking life and I’ll never change anything because I’m such a fucking coward.

It wasn’t just Paris that reminded me how broken I am. Nearly everywhere I went, I was surrounded by happy, normal people that just served to remind me that I’ll never be happy or successful like them. I remember being out at night in Luxembourg – freaking Luxembourg, a city nobody will ever accuse of having a vibrant social scene – and seeing crowds of people, all having a good time socializing and enjoying each others’ company. I couldn’t even understand what they were doing, or how. I can’t even make simple conversation over dinner with people I know – let alone total strangers – because I have nothing to contribute to any conversation.

Until I have the balls to take the dignified way out of this situation, I’ve decided I can at least make my life as joyless and as much like being dead as possible. Games in particular keep me distracted from reality, so I’m getting rid of those. I’ve emptied my GameFly queue, boxed up my game consoles and put them in the closet. I’m not going to bother getting my 360 fixed. I’m not going to play any games at all except for my weekly MMO group. I’ve unsubscribed from all game-related podcasts, and may just quit listening to podcasts altogether. I’ve unsubscribed from all my RSS feeds except for a couple I use to keep an eye on the site.

I won’t have anything at all to do when I’m at home, but at least I won’t be able to trick myself into thinking my life isn’t some kind of fucking farce. For once, I’ll have more than enough time to think about what a joke it really is.

June is the month of pictures. I’m not going to post one big wrap-up of the entire trip; instead, I’ll post one or more pictures each weekday for the rest of the month and include comments.

At this point, I’m undecided whether to even bother continuing the Year of Enrichment or, for that matter, the blog. Self-improvement in my case just seems like polishing the proverbial turd. And in case it isn’t obvious, the podcast is over for good.

Edit: The fact that I’ve turned off comments on this post should be a hint to you that I don’t want to discuss it. So don’t e-mail me about it, because you’re not going to get a reply.

Last-minute multi-post

nospam@example.com (Brenden Mecleary) — Sat, 31 May 2008 08:00:00 -0400

I’m pretty sure she knows it’s a multi-post.

I created this image using the same basic approach as the War image last month. It took three and a half hours. The original is 3200×2000 resolution, as usual. Everything except for the raindrops was painted on a single layer. I also have color balance and hue/saturation adjustment layers on it to cool the colors of the image slightly.

Even though this technique seems to work out OK-ish for me, I just don’t know if it’s what I should be doing. I feel like maybe I should be doing more exaggerated stuff, with brighter colors and simpler shading. Not only for time purposes, but because I kind of feel like if you can’t do excellent shading with just two values, you’re not going to be able to handle more complex shading.

I’ve uploaded a wallpaper-size version for those who may be interested.

Spending:

Date	Item	Amount
5/24	Venti Latte at Starbucks	$3.68
5/25	Venti Latte at Starbucks	$3.69
5/25	Food at Safeway	$37.23
5/27	Food at Wal-Mart	$12.23
5/29	Food at Wal-Mart	$12.40
5/30	Venti Latte at Starbucks	$3.69
-	Total:	$72.92

I also downloaded a game for my PS3. Even after that, it still leaves about $18 in my entertainment budget, which is fine, since I went so over budget on food:

Date	Item	Amount
5/25	Echochrome	$10.00
-	Total:	$10.00

Finally, I’ll be turning off comments on the blog before I leave, so if you can’t comment on anything while I’m gone, that’s why. Talk to you in a couple weeks.

TMoTT: The smell of shame

nospam@example.com (Brenden Mecleary) — Tue, 27 May 2008 08:00:00 -0400

I tried to make brownies Sunday night. If they had turned out OK, I would have posted a picture of them here. They did not turn out OK, despite following the recipe as closely as I was able. Now whenever I go to put something in the trash, the smell of the brownies reminds me of my failure.

Also, I scored 53% on my French test last night.

That is all.

Podcast #50: Welcome to the end times

nospam@example.com (Brenden Mecleary) — Sun, 25 May 2008 12:00:00 -0400

This is the last podcast before I go on vacation. It may be the last AH podcast, period.

This week I get ready to wrap up The Month of Tasty Treats, talk briefly about this week’s drawing, do a now playing segment for nostalgia’s sake, and talk about the future of the podcast.

Download Podcast

Multi-post of the week

nospam@example.com (Brenden Mecleary) — Sat, 24 May 2008 08:00:00 -0400

She knows it’s a multi-post.

This week’s drawing brought to you by Wipeout Pulse, “Disco Ball”, and the letter R.

Same size as usual, 3200×2000. Took about 3.5 hours, if I remember correctly. Except for the bloom, all the color was done with a solid, variable-width brush in PS, and the original lines were done with ArtRage, as usual. I didn’t really have anything special in mind for shading, and I certainly achieved nothing special. When it comes to flat shading, I think I like the Faito image better.

I’m not sure how much of a difference it made not listening to podcasts all week. Besides when I was drawing, I think I should have also made exceptions for times when I was cooking and eating and so on. Though I must say, those were the main times I wanted to listen. I didn’t mind not having them on the drive to and from work, or while I was at work. I think a more serious drain on my mental energy is games, which is something I’ve known for a long time, and haven’t actually managed yet to do anything about.

Spending:

Date	Item	Amount
5/17	Venti Latte at Starbucks	$3.68
5/20	Food at Safeway	$20.63
5/21	Venti Latte at Starbucks	$3.69
5/21	Food at Wal-Mart	$10.04
5/22	Food at Safeway	$16.21
5/23	Venti Latte at Starbucks	$3.69
5/23	Food and supplies at Wal-Mart	$10.25
5/23	Food at Safeway	$7.74
-	Total:	$75.93

More than my $50 budget, but not entirely ridiculous. This would have been less if not for a couple unusually expensive meals.

TMoTT: Edgar Allan Potato

nospam@example.com (Brenden Mecleary) — Fri, 23 May 2008 08:00:00 -0400

Another recipe out of Jamie Oliver’s book. It’s obviously impossible to see from the outside, but those are baked potatoes stuffed with bacon, garlic, anchovy, and sage. Definitely had more flavor than the salmon. The only difficult part was cutting tubes through the potatoes, since I didn’t have an apple corer or anything like that handy. Those little pieces of potato are the cores, which were supposed to be kind of plugs to hold in all the stuffing, but I had too much in my potatoes and they all fell out by the time everything was done.

I’d never used anchovies as an ingredient before – or even eaten them, to the best of my knowledge – and I was a bit alarmed when I got them out of the tin and discovered they were full of tiny bones. According to the internet, this is entirely normal, so I went ahead and used them. By the time the potatoes were done, there wasn’t much left of the bones, and even the anchovies themselves got a bit lost among the rest of the stuffing. The main difficulty with this recipe was waiting the one hour for the potatoes to bake.

Work took us all out to see Indiana Jones 4 yesterday afternoon. I enjoyed it thoroughly. I could nitpick on some of the effects, but overall it was just a fun movie. All the people who usually complain about this kind of movie will bitch about this one too, but if you don’t go in expecting anything more than an Indiana Jones movie, there’s no reason you can’t enjoy it.

I also see that they’ve re-activated everyone’s City of Heroes/Villains accounts over the weekend. In the immortal words of the guy from Unreal Tournament 3, “F Yeah!” It’s patching – glacially – as I write this, and I’ll be getting my cape on over the weekend. Interesting though, that they didn’t extend it an extra day for the U.S. holiday on Monday, when many people have the day off.