I like to tell stories.  I am also very good at telling a story.  To the point where if you listen carefully enough, images will project on the canvas that is your imagination.  A “theater of the mind” if you would.   Yet for the past week, instead of perfecting this skill, and putting my story on paper, I’ve searched and read through dozens upon dozens of Photoshop blogs, learning about flares and blurs.  My purpose of such a journey? I do not know.  Will these skills ever come under my employ? I most certainly hope so.  Although educational, I was also very entertained by some of the work that fellow bloggers have done with Photoshop.  Not so much by the precision or the skill, but more so by the creativity shown in their work.  Such is the case with these covers of video games I wish existed.  Scarlett Johansson’s Sleepover on page 4 is definitely a game I must have for my collection, should such a game ever exist.

My hopes and dreams have been dashed recently by the reality of economics.  Like a manchild who dreams of a state of the art entertainment system but is crushed by its multi thousand dollar price tag, I’ve been knocked down (in a bareknuckle fashion) by the monetary fists of film school.  After visiting the respective websites of the British Columbia Institute of Technology and the Vancouver Film School, I’ve come to the conclusion that tagging on an addition $40,000 on top of my existing loan is not the smartest path to head down.  And since none of my current paths feature green fields on either side, lucsious rainbows, sweet scented flowers, and a sun beating down on me with radiant beams of light while a unicorn frolicks in the open pasture, it’s really only choosing between the lesser of two evils.

A few posts ago, I discussed my concupiscence for a new layout for the site.  Much like building a city, it is easy to visualize the utopian result.  Carrying out the process to achieve the goal is a much different story.  For the past few days, I have spent hours upon hours “googling” for instructions to not only modify, but completely design a new WordPress template.  Upon burying myself in these instructionals the way a hormonal teenager applies himself in a vault of Hustler magazines, I emerged with the realization that I need more than instructions, I need a God damn teacher!  Not only so that he may convey the instructions to me, but so that he may walk with me through each and every trivial step, holding my hand along the way.

I now hold my parent’s constant struggle with technology that much closer to my heart.  I blame the confusion not on my inferior skills to follow instructions because like a mindless droid, I follow them quite well.  Rather, I find it is due to the author’s often inaccurate assumptions of the reader’s ability, leading to jargon and abridgment of required steps.  I only rejoice in knowing that, having felt their pain, my parents will no longer be subjected to my acrimony during their mind numbing “Window Updates” inquiries.

I’ve also been shopping around (more in the mental processing of the shopping experience rather than the actual shopping stage) for a new look to the page.  Aside from the ridiculousness of a generic blue jay as the representative of a site revolving around reviews on digital content, I just have a genuine dislike for birds.  This is in direct regards to their uncanny ability to spot a car fresh out of the car wash, and their compulsive need to send you right back into another.  In my mind’s eye, I see exactly how I want the site to look, yet on paper, my illustrations are drawn with my left foot.  The Photoshop skills that I lack further compounds my quandary.

With Christmas just over, New Year is right around the corner.  I do not understand the jubilation of bringing in the new year, but I fear I must attend the festivities.  My insistence of staying in bed, watching Julie Andrews escape from Nazis at midnight last year caused many to stir about depression issues, which I am sure to be without.  As consolation for braving the last 11:59 of 2008, I get to welcome 2009 in the comfort of a friend’s house this year.  I thank him dearly for allowing me to escape the scurge of the general public, a body I both fear and loathe.

No, I do not know him so I am not just pushing a buddy’s video.  I am pushing it because the dude speaks my mind for me!  This video goes out to all the girls everywhere! Especially if you are not of the Asian variety and don’t know what they know.