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June 30, 2005

Summer Reading

Summer is upon us, and for me that means lazy nights in bed with a good book. For some reason nothing beats being lulled to sleep than a story by Edmund White. His stories, sometimes autobiographical, read like a Norman Rockwell painting, capturing a time in American history when things were lazy and carefree, but only a little gayer.

Posted by Charlie at 11:50 AM | Comments (1)

June 27, 2005

Acceleration

You never realize just how vital monetary assets play into the planning of your future until you actually sit down and start churning out numbers. For a while I was worried that I would have to spend another year in Seattle, saving up enough money to make that transitional move to New York for work and school. Jobless and (tempoarily) physically disabled, my personal finances are virtually nil. But then today something came in the mail that totally changed my plans.

Ten years ago I invested some money into a company by the name of Microsoft, and in the years between then and now the stocks have split many times over, leaving me with a sizable income. Every month in those years I would get a statement from my stock company detailing my account summaries, but being the lazy ass that I am I'd just file them without so much as a glimpse at the numbers. Imagine my delight in remembering my stock assets. Just as happy as a kid who discovers a misplaced dollar bill in his back pocket, I came to the realization that New York may be a sooner reality than I first thought. I love it when things like this happen!

It's a little exciting and a bit daunting, knowing that I am essentially in control of my future. I've started making a list of things I would want to bring with me, and I plan on selling or donating the rest of my shit. Nothing is permanent yet; it's just nice to know that I'm not as helpless as I previously thought I was.

Posted by Charlie at 11:42 PM | Comments (0)

My Foot Fetish

I really like it when girls play with my foot like it's a lollipop and they've just gone off a hunger strike.

Posted by Charlie at 10:58 PM | Comments (0)

Pride Weekend

This past weekend was Seattle's Pride celebration, but I opted to not partake in any of the festivities this year, mainly because of my ankle, partly because I wasn't in the partying mood anyway. It was, however, one of the most fun times I've had in a while. With Brenna's wedding, karaoke with Sue JeanA and Booga, and dinner with Butt-Face, who needs 10,000 beautiful and available men all rounded up in one central location? I sure as hell don't.

Posted by Charlie at 10:26 PM | Comments (0)

June 22, 2005

Archiving

The hardest part is now officially over: with a click of the mouse button I was able to archive all of my entries into one convenient text file, and porting them over to my site was a cinch. Since Movable Type powers Typepad and my site, it pretty much took less than five minutes to transfer two years' worth of pointless thoughts to my new, and possibly final home. Now begins the arduous task of creating a streamlined design that will compliment the rest of my site...

Posted by Charlie at 11:44 PM | Comments (0)

June 20, 2005

My New Site

I've just finished uploading my personal site www.charlesyesuwan.com up onto the server. It isn't by any means finished; I still have to upload a lot of my work from the previous year, and the design of the site itself isn't finalized. My web host also came with support for Movable Type, so I think I'm going to be slowly archiving these entries and moving them over to that site. A Visual Gallery of Sorts will soon be no more! Stay tuned for updates.

Posted by Charlie at 02:25 PM

June 19, 2005

A Very Productive Weekend Indeed

My personal site is coming along very nicely. I've decided to go along with a very simple composition to let my work speak for itself. Quite frankly I don't want to invest a lot of time on this project; I want to be able to get more jobs once I'm finally able to walk again.

Posted by Charlie at 08:10 PM | Comments (0)

June 17, 2005

Home Sweet Home

My cousin, who has been busily occupying my room for the past four months, has finally moved out to pursue English studies at Port Angeles. Today was the first day I FINALLY was able to settle my things from the Generation MIX Tour, and for the first time I feel like I'm home at long last. I think this is when I can finally star processing all that I've experienced for those two months, yeah?

Posted by Charlie at 11:49 PM | Comments (0)

The Videogame Wars

It's that time again. Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo are once again preparing for the launches of their next-generation gaming consoles, all vying for exclusive control of your living room entertainment center for the next several years. I cannot wait for these systems to come out; because each company has a different gaming approach to this industry, each gaming console will be vastly different from the others. Microsoft's XBOX 360 and Sony's Playstation 3 will be more like computers, controlling everything from your music and movie library to managing your daily emails. Nintendo's plan on making its ENTIRE gaming library (from the NES to Gamecube) playable on its Revolution console is ingenious. It has never been a better time to be a gamer.

Posted by Charlie at 03:56 AM

June 16, 2005

Escapism

I went and saw the movie 'My Summer of Love' with Brian last night. It was a sweet and poignant story, a tale of two teenage girls and despite their vastly different upbringings befriend each other over one summer. Their friendship quickly escalates into something more intimate, ultimately climaxing in a powerful scene at a river.

In one scene one of the girls reveals to the other that she considered herself a fantasist. She admits to creating worlds and characters and stories in order to spice up her dull and meaningless existence, and in some ways I can identify with her. My life, it feels has always been about acting a part for a certain audience for the sole purpose of impressing them. My personality shifts whenever I'm around these people - I would act coy, cocky, forlorn, egoless, flirtatious, quick-witted - and I would scare myself as another version of me would take over. I'm thinking back on times where I would catch myself posing. Even my sister has commented on how I act in front of certain people. My friends can attest to the fact that I love to adopt different dialectical accents, but that characteristic is usually attributed from alcohol. I'm still figuring out why this is so... is it because I'm using acting as some sort of an escapist defense mechanism? I don't know.

Anyway, I thought the movie was wonderful. The performances by Nathalie Press and Emily Blunt are just amazing. I particularly like Ms. Press because she reminds me of a young Tilda Swinton, my favorite actress. The camerawork in this film is also very interesting: the director was very fond of capturing very tight frames, all too often filling the entire shot with the faces of the girls. Normally I would be annoyed at this kind of moviemaking, but as the two actresses are extremely emotive and photogenic, and given the context of the film I didn't mind it one bit.

Go see this movie.

Posted by Charlie at 04:23 AM

Portfolio Building

I find it hilarious that I am able to get this far in my design career (if you can call it that) without so much as an online portfolio to showcase my work. I'm supposed to be a freelancer, c'mon! This downtime has really given me the opportunity, besides sitting in front of the television watching reruns of Debbie Travis' Painted House, to finally design a website for myself and for potential clients. This is kind of a first for me. Aside from this blog and the previous incarnation hosted on the UW website, I haven't really designed something that really represented my personal design philosophy (do I even have one?) while maintaining accessibility for those potential clients.

It's been hard. I've been experimenting with letterforms, utilizing typefaces from Designer Shock as signage, but initial drafts were shot down. I'm tempted to just go the old-fashioned route and have a traditional grid-based website, but I also want something to stick out from the rest, so I can attract certain clientele drawn to my design philosophy (really, do I have one?).

Time constraints forbid me from creating a complex Flash site. I want simple, but eye-catching. This entire process has very internalizing; it feels different not having some sort of template to follow, when you have free rein over the design. It looks like it's back to the drawing board for me...

Posted by Charlie at 12:45 AM | Comments (0)

Kissing The Legless: Part Acht

Good news arrived in the mail yesterday: my application to receive charity allowance from the hospital was approved! Now that the $30,000 burden has been lifted off my shoulders I can concentrate more on recovering and grad school plans. Whew.

Posted by Charlie at 12:09 AM | Comments (0)

June 13, 2005

Checking In

I know I should be updating this weblog more often considering I'm paying top dollar to keep this site up, but I wish I had something to report. Life is becoming routine: I wake up, hop into the kitchen to make breakfast, hop back to bed, and spend pretty much the rest of the day buried in my test prep books. I haven't had a drink in over a month - a personal record - and strangely enough, I'm not craving for a martini. What's wrong with me?!

Posted by Charlie at 05:57 PM | Comments (2)

June 11, 2005

Kissing The Legless: Part Siete

I received a new cast last Thursday. It's small and black, and the best part is that it's light. I'm semi-mobile again! The first thing I did when I got home after the trip to the hospital was (FINALLY!) change into some jeans, called up friends, and then head out in my trust Volvo to rekindle my fading social life. It was weird being out in public again, in my predicament. I felt like I stuck out like a sore thumb, but as this experience has pretty much rid me of any ego, I didn't really embarrassed. Nonetheless, under doctor's orders I still have to keep my leg elevated, destroying any hopes of a dance-off at Neighbors this weekend.

Posted by Charlie at 08:30 PM | Comments (0)

June 06, 2005

Coldplay - X&Y

Several years in the making, and the wait is finally over: Coldplay's latest album is finally out! Go out and get a copy of X&Y now! I am just loving the new direction their sound is taking. A little more synth, a little less acoustics.

Posted by Charlie at 11:21 PM | Comments (0)

Kissing The Legless: Part Six

Waiting waiting waiting. That is all I do these days. It feels so weird, having the lives of people around me progress away in daily fashion, while I sit here in the sidelines observing like a documentarian. The only thing I really do these days is sit on my ass researching graduate programs and study for the GREs and GMAT. Such is the life of a helpless convalescent (I learned that word today).

Posted by Charlie at 11:57 AM | Comments (0)

The Rumors Were True

Man oh man do I embellish on stuff like this: Steve Jobs announced today that Apple will be making the transition from IBM PowerPC chips to Intel chips, finally putting an end on the rumors that have circulated in the tech community this past several weeks. During the WWDC conference today it was revealed that Mac OSX was built from the ground up with a "just-in-case" scenario, and now that IBM has hit a wall in processing speed for its Power PC line, Apple has no choice but to go with Intel. Even cooler is the fact that the Keynote was running off an Intel Pentium 4 processor, squashing rumors that Apple would have to spend millions of dollars to restructure OSX to work with Intel chips.

Posted by Charlie at 11:10 AM | Comments (0)

June 01, 2005

Kissing The Legless: Part Cinque

Everything hurts. Man oh man... I've never been in this much physical agony. The pain, won't it please go away! I couldn't even sleep well last night, and ended up watching select episodes of SNL with a contorted expression on my face. I hate this!

Thank goodness for painkillers, however. Thank mutha-fuckin' goodness for painkillers. They do a relatively good job at getting rid of some of the pain, but unfortunately they aren't able to get rid of that feeling of having a 20-pound splint around your leg. Without them I would be nothing, you hear me?! Nothing. They're my only friends right now, always there when I need them...

More to come...

Posted by Charlie at 10:10 PM | Comments (0)