Germany Part Three

If you know my good pal Trey Reis, you might know he makes some stellar tunes. If you know me, you probably know I have too much time on my hands, ergo: music video. (I'm still working on parts of it. I'll update when it's finished. Listen on headphones; for some reason speakers aren't picking up parts of the song.)

Portland Panda Preservation & Procreation Project

Dillies is a Bar about a block away from where I used to live. Hardly anyone goes there so it’s a nice place to drink without being disturbed. If you sit by the window facing New Seasons (a chain of well-kempt grocery stores in and around Portland), you can watch as hundreds of well-dressed, attractive people rummage for groceries with miniaturized, streamlined shopping carts. If you drink enough alcohol, it’s enough to make you throw up.

I sat by that window for an entire day once. When New Seasons closed, I just picked up my drink and migrated to the back room, where they keep the barely functional piano, extra tables, and stacked up analog televisions: This is where I met the guy who got me addicted and arrested, the guy who, probably, saved my life. I think his name was Bill. He was very Chinese. He was dressed as a Panda. We fell asleep. A garbage truck woke us up.

Moving Around

I moved back to Oahu last week. I'm not sure how long I'll be here or where exactly I'll go once I leave, but I'm enjoying it for now. My little sister has doubled, possibly tripled, in size. My mom has gotten really involved with her church (I'm going to a concert or choir-thing they're putting on later tonight). Gary is still Gary (I'm getting him chess pieces for Christmas so we can start playing again). The biggest change is that my Grandma moved back to Korea. Her not being here really makes the house seem emptier; no more baby sitting, no more improvised sign language, and a lot less Korean chatter; Rebecca has even stopped talking in Korean, which is strange because she was better at it than English last time I was here.

My room has got all the same stuff in it, all arranged the same way as I left it. I've been going through a lot of old drawings packed into drawers, they're mostly crap but still fun to look at. I'm making a note not to burn these like I did my old drawings in Iowa.

The Hundred in the Hands

Baths

Willdammit

Girls

Check it:

Aerosol Amoeba from Pahnl Whatnow on Vimeo.

This is pretty great, you should watch it.

Portland Panda Preservation & Procreation Project

Trey Everday

Trey and his SP 404

Pen and highlighter drawing of my roommate Trey and his sampler (also known as wonderful noise machine or SP 404). This will hopefully turn into a series I'm working on with my other roommate Emilie, we're going to draw Trey throughout the week and maybe, possibly, have 14 drawings by the end of it. We're calling it "Trey Everyday". This is the first drawing. Maybe I'll write some poems.

TV-land

SE 18th

Started this today. Maybe I'll finish it tomorrow. Seems unlikely though.

Woodcuts

Sarah P.


A lot of TVs


Gig R.

Lino Cuts

Raccoon hat.


Business Raccoon.


Raccoon pants.

T-shirt Sale Report

Print Club T-shirt Sale:

Since running the t-shirt sale 2 days in a row worked so well last semester, we decided to try it for 3 days this time. We were a lot more organized, everyone carved awesome images, and we had crap-tons of enthusiastic customers. In total, we made $1,100!

Gig: the woodblock

Still working...

Health Care

It will be mandatory for everyone in the country to buy overpriced private health insurance.

There will be no public option, no cost control, the health insurance companies will still make money by not providing health care to the people they are supposed to be covering.

Are Obama/jello-dems fighting for us or for the health insurance companies?

2-28-10 through 3-6-10

Went to watch Trey and Gig play at the Mews on Thursday, hadn't heard either of them play music before; I was reeeeeealllllly impressed at how great they sounded.

Here: asteroidpinballmachine (Trey), musicmaidmarian (Gig). Go. Listen. Be impressed at how great it sounds.

Our house did Kaleidoquiz again this year, our team name was "Dunston Checks In 2: Dunston Checks Out" (although, it should have been "The Kaleidokids"). We got 11th place, which is pretty damn good considering the number of people we had (I was on B-team, which consisted of me and Emilie, until Emilie left and I fell asleep). Overall, I thought KQ was a letdown this year. The challenges weren't as fun and most of the questions were either dumb, frustrating, or impossible.

Here's a sweded version of Harry Potter we did for KQ 2009:

2-27-10

Today: I rediscovered my Deviant Art page (thank you Denise); I watched an awesome Judge Judy episode; visited with my uncle Dave; participated in a scavenger hunt for a total of 20 seconds; and drew a picture of my cat. Good day, very good day.

In Defense of Toyota

This is a little out of the ordinary for my blog posts, but I'm kind of worked up after an argument with my good friends, Trey and Jon. Our disagreement, i think (I kind of got confused about what we were arguing about after a while)was, and is, that I believe Toyota's actions were despicable and our government has every right--and even responsibility-- to hold the Japanese car manufacturer accountable, demand an apology, require a legitimate solution, and generally get pissed off at their incompetence and/or negligence; Jon and Trey's opinion (and forgive me if this is inaccurate, I generally have poor memory) is that the entire situation has been blown out of proportion by the media (which could be true), Toyota really didn't do anything wrong because there are always going to be malfunctions in mass produced products, that our government has no right stepping in, that--while tragic-- the amount of malfunctions has been "ridiculously small", and that Toyota acted exactly how any American car company would have acted (this I agree with wholeheartedly, but I still don't think it's okay).

Firstly, I'd like you to watch this video (it might be part of why I am so upset, and yes, I realize there are probably lots of other incidents, equally as tragic, that don't involve Toyota malfunctions, but this could have been avoided--the deaths of 39 human beings, who probably went through the same horror, could have been avoided:



So here is an overview of the situation:

• Between 2000 and 2010, over 2,600 complaints"of sudden unintended acceleration" in Toyota vehicles were filed with the NHTSA (a government agency that is supposed to protect us from these kinds of things.)
• March 2004, the government conducts one investigation of the problem and closes it a month later.
• Between 2004 and 2009, four petitions are brought to the NHTSA by Toyota owners begging them to conduct more investigations; the requests are ignored.
• Before any action is taken, 243 people are injured and 16 die (numbers from a Safety Research & Strategies study).
• 2007, their solution is: recall floormats because they are bunching up under the accelerator. (Total bullshit that nearly everyone involved in the accidents denies. Internal memos reveal Toyota applauding their safety department for finding a way to "limit the recall" and "save the company 100 million or more".) (It's really, really disgusting.)
• 2007-2010, a lot more people die or come close to dying:

In Portland, Oregon, Marianna Eisner's Lexus crashed into a truck after it shot out of control on the freeway in September. Said Eisner, "I did have a fleeting thought that this may be the day that I die."She said that prior to the incident, she had already heard about the floor mat problem and made a point of checking hers. "The mat was nowhere near the accelerator," said Eisner.

The driver of a Toyota Camry whose wife was killed when their vehicle went over a cliff in California said that even with his foot on the brake he could not stop his car.

"All of a sudden," said Bulent Ezal, "the car surged with force and I was thrown back to the seat."

Elizabeth James said her Toyota Prius suddenly shot up to 90 miles an hour when her foot was not on the gas pedal. "I'm absolutely certain that in my situation, it was not the floor mats," said James.

"A fatal accident near San Diego this August that took the lives of California Highway patrol officer Mark Saylor, his wife, daughter and brother-in-law drew attention to the problem of 'runaway Toyotas.' The Lexus they were driving, borrowed from a dealer, raced out of control at 100 miles an hour before hitting another vehicle, crashing into an embankment and bursting into flames. Right before the crash, Saylor's brother-in-law called 911 from the backseat of the vehicle and said urgently, "Our accelerator is stuck. We're in trouble…There's no brakes." "

--ABC News (here's a video of the b.s. floor mat excuse.)

• 2009-2010, Toyota recalls 6.3 million cars, all recent models ( But over 70% of the malfunctions happened in car models they are not recalling; the reason they aren't recalling that 70%? Well, probably, because it would bankrupt them.)
  

The whole thing really disturbs me, and the more I read, the worse it gets. Apparently, the reason the NHTSA is so lax on regulating major auto companies, is that when they retire from the NHTSA, the auto companies hire them for lots and lots of money.

The other day, Rush Limbaugh (defender of corporations here, there, and on the moon) asked, "Does anyone doubt, ladies and gentlemen, that Toyota does a good job making safe affordable cars?"

I can think of a few.

hill and sky prints

2-23-10

I watched a curling match today and, surprisingly, it was really awesome. I also kicked the crap out of an art history test, and got a Classic in the Making t-shirt. Good day, very good day.

2-22-10

I've been having trouble sleeping. I either get that half-sleep I have on airplanes or no sleep at all. It's becoming a real problem, I had a printmaking critique today and I don't remember anything about it. I doodled this, that's it.

2-21-10

copper engraving

2-20-10

Note to self: get automatic orange peeler.

excerpt and sketch from: t-rex in the sea

...It was kind of a hollow victory, because I failed at what I was actually trying to do, which was cheer up the girl taking my money and handing me baseballs. She didn't exactly look sad, just blank, like the part of her brain controlling emotions had short-circuited. I think I went through around forty bucks worth of smiling and one-sided conversation and failed attempts to make her laugh; she just sat there staring at me with empty, plastic-looking eyes, nodding occasionally. At a certain point, she just assumed I was trying to get her number, and all hope was lost. I told her she was beautiful, and she handed me one of the t-rex hats hanging from the ceiling. She told me the game was rigged and I should stop trying, then she told me to go away...

This is part of an illustrated story I'm working on. The sketch and text are both still rough, but here's some progress on what will, hopefully, eventually, turn into the final illustration:

2-19-10

"What was that Switchfoot song?"
"--What if God waaas one of us? Just another slaahb like one of u--"
"No, that's not it."

postcard exchange

Just finished making a flyer for the postcard exchange (if you are reading this you should make 13 postcards and send them to ISU Print Society).

dsfdf portrait