Burning to Awake

Step away from me cuz I’m tripping.
Leave me your water and go.

This is too intense. Will I stay like this forever?

Alternate between dreams and nightmares.
God and the devil. Compassion and indifference.

Visions of beauty.
One lone soul passes by me with the deepness of the ocean.
The deepness only the dead or the living dead are aware of.

Fear, lack of fear, control, and control in the lack of control.

Ghosts of the past guide me with their beautiful songs.
Literal translation kills the metaphor.

Running in a white tutu. Lost helpless. Powerful. Endearing.
Fly with the wind. The carnival of monsters awakens me,
and my spirit gets taken away.

Ears raped by savage sounds, new age mysticism is truly comforting.
Disturbed by indifferent strangers. No connection.

Continue searching.

Crash party of gentle souls, offered gifts of comfort.
Cannot stay inside. Must search again.

It is never over. It will never be over.
As long as I give in to the flesh, there will be no release.

Lose your body, gain entrance to the spirit world.
Pulled back by water. Must be near the Earth.
The Earth is thirsty for love, and attention.
It craves for your touch, as you crave for hers.

Urinate in the dark sand.
Create an acid river that soon enough dries.
Like all things eternal, they are always permutating.

-Alex

Miss-In-Scene #6: How can you tell your weed is missing?

Have you met someone who blames it on others when their weed runs out? I have. How to avoid weed culprits? Very simple.

Step 1: Hide your main stash.

Hide the stash you use in a place that only you know about. Do not get from this stash when you have visitors or roommates over. You need to give people weed from your “public” stash. This is meant to help you monitor your usage habits, and to avoid confusing what you smoke from what others “steal.”

Step 2: Set the bait.

Weight your weed, and serve others from your public stash and leave it unattended. Say how you don’t know how much you smoke anymore, and how much of an out-of-control tranny you are. Plant in others’ heads how much of an easy target you are.

Step 3: Monitor.

Check in on that “bait” weed often (Caution: Do not smoke it. This defeats the purpose of your weed surveillance practices.)

Step 4: Blame.

Blame it on others once you find your buds reduced to nothing, and make them buy you NEW weed. New weed you’ll need to monitor following the steps 1 to 4 over and over again (for eternity… or until you get busted and thrown in a post-apocalyptic jail).

Any if they keep on giving you any trouble, come back to me. I’ll take care of it.

-Alex

I Can Slam Dunk Too! Breaking The Glass Ceiling.

Pheromones have been at an all time high all over the world. From women cheering and weeping all throughout the Sex & The City movie premiere, to Hillary Clinton’s sweep in Puerto Rico’s primaries, from Olympian women breaking world records, to middled aged females having their dreams come true in Mamma Mia. It seems that women everywhere are gaining higher exposition outside of the stripper pole. They are definitely a market starting to be “tapped” on (no pun intended). But are women really achieving a higher status in society? As high as we are, can we break that ceiling?

Despite women’s constant objectification and domination by men throughout the centuries, females certainly have “gotten ahead” in many issues regarding equality. We can vote now and are not sold as cattle (in certain parts of the world). I mean, c’mon… who hasn’t gone to Egypt and been offered 10 camels in exchange of some pussy. And this is the part were many people might roll their eyes, which is why I generally try to stay away from gender issues. But truth of the matter is, the nomenclature of our place in society has changed, but certainly our place in society hasn’t. We are still getting paid less, and we are still responsible for taking care of the home even if we work full-time outside of the house, plus we are still seen as second-rate citizens. It was not that long ago that Huckabee was trying to kick women out of military combat. Problem is, this is probably our fault too! After all, we are the main carriers of culture in every society.

This SlamDunk piece is inspired by the Nike Air ads that present a very virile Jordan slam dunking. It invites you in a very tongue-in-cheek way to see femininity in a distorted context, and how the virility of the “air” concept completely gets smashed as you put a ballerina skirt on the dunker… and make him into a “fag.”

You aren’t conscious of these associations, yet art is always a good reminder of how big a piece of shit you are. Yum…

-Alex

Side Note: Even in the UK (that’s like saying “even in non-barbaric places like our beloved West”… but bare with me), Muslim women are beat up and killed in so-called “honor killings.” These crimes are characterized by families regaining lost honor by taking care of their out-of-control teen by really letting her have it. For a more detailed example of one of these stories, check out this BBC News article.

Miss-IN-SCENE #5 (And another gratuitous use of the word “spiritualist”)

Flickr Description: “Don’t label me! Unless it is a tag so my story can be “digged” all the way to the top!”

Wow, look… I keep using hot words in hopes of getting your attention. Next episode should have someone waiting in line for the iPhone. That will probably cause you to frame me. (Don’t frame me! I hate boxes… make it an open oval… so my chi doesn’t get messed up.)

-Alex

PNG24 vs. PNG8: Living the Glowless Life

As the battle between pngs continues, I give you a visual example of the limitations the png8 format has. Larger PNG8 images (201x201px up) begin to lose resolution. That is because PNG8 does not support gradients, and larger images expose higher detail. Also, PNG8 is bad to glows (as seen in the black backpack), while PNG24 (blue jacket) treats them with grace.

For these 201×201 product images, I kept optimizing them using 64 Colors, and the Selective / Diffusion / Transparent settings in the Save For Web menu.

Remember PNG8 is best used on relatively small images, like thumbs. It can give you 70% savings in file size, and give you the transparency you need. Use with caution ; )

-Alex