Monday Flow

I wish these pockets had mumps

My feet feel like stumps

These thoughts are in a slump

It's Monday, but I wanna hump

I'm feeling love drunk

Off the nor Cal skunk

Like Dwizzle, here's a dunk

But not an oreo and milk

My flows are smooth like silk

But I'm not tryna talk

Cuz these girls I like to stalk

The ones with more horses than carriage

Get me out before the marriage

I'm feelin' like a parrot

Sayin' the same thing twice

But like three blind mice

I don't walk too nice

Get me off the ground, 30,000 mile flight

Elevate these dreams, remove the need to fight

Held back in the wind, like a kite

Two incisors man, just a little bite.

Monday Flow.

Go.

"Going Mad"

Cool idea for a reality television show, it came to me when I was reminiscing about Big Brother and 9/11 and how it was a "moral or ethical" question whether to tell them about the attack when they were supposed to be isolated.  Anyways, a spin on this would be a reality television show that advertised itself as a spin-off or continuation to Big Brother, where 5-9 contestants, isolated in the middle of nowhere (contestants are not told where they're taken to), are placed in a large house that's rigged to that the walls expand and contract, raise and lower, change direction, imitate day and night, interchangeably.

The point of this is to observe the human psyche and its affect on group and complete isolation, with variables added to directly affect or inflict the concept of "going mad".  This might be cruel and unusual punishment, so a psychological evaluation should be completed before casting.

Good Idea? Bad Idea? Either way, I'd love to see how this pans out. Just hope people don't get creative and go "psycho" on everyone.

untold

The sunlight beams uncontrollably
It is a warm November day

I sit staring at parasites
sipping my tea and thinking of my fate

I consider, just for a moment,
what it means to live this way

And I lie to myself
"God's Will" is what I had to say

I give my gift of nothing more

I found I am America's whore

How I miss the Spanish shore

That makes life seem less than a chore

My chicken scratch now becomes a bore

And I feel the hollow center, my core

Is unrelenting, its diminishing, I'm being controlled

Against my will, but I must uphold

What was so dear to me, tenfold

I will not let this life story continue, untold.

Social Atmosphere

So we have Social Networks, we have internet space, why don't we have social atmospheres? The idea is to have a main hub, a favorites page, THEE page that your browser goes directly to when opened. And all your regularly visited sites or favorite sites or personalized sites (however) are displayed as if they were working applications on a desktop.  I figure, since we (as humans) can function with tabs why not be able to put all of our regularly scheduled internet sites on one page for us to access simultaneously?

On another note, hot pockets should make an ice cream sandwich.

That One Song

Ever have that day where all you can think about is that one "power" song you had almost a decade ago, but you just can't remember the name or the rhythm quite well?  So what do you do? Play a bunch of songs in that genre, trying to get closer and closer to your goal? Maybe one of them sounds so similar that your brain goes "Hey! That's the one!".  How often does that happen though?

I've been having this itch (not that kind) for a specific song for the last few days now, and I'm not quite sure which song I need.  I've tried Lupe Fiasco's Daydreamin', I've tried David Guetta's One Love featuring Kid Cudi, I've tried Kanye's whole line up of G.O.O.D. Friday tracks, I even went as far back as listening to Robert Miles and old school Eminem.  Nothing! Is! Working!

I guess it'll hit me one day and I'll fall out of my chair and there will be my song, probably on a Mitsubishi commercial or on a new episode of Dexter.  I hope.

Toosday

I find it only fair that if I will be sharing my thoughts, that segregating my good and bad ones wasn't fair.  It should be known that I'm not always pessimistic about life or depressed about everything that is the "bay area".  I guess, since I think about work a lot, I should talk about that tooday too.

I did my regular rounds of store hopping tooday, dropping in to see how each of the manager's was doing and how the store's profits and losses were.  Thankful to say that all stores are positive for the month, for now, and this will be a nice, strong five-week September.  However, with the approach of Halloween, long summer nights getting warmer (as they should be cooling, gotta love the bay) and November, December and January are just around the corner I've been working earnestly to improve our branding, company image and push for total standardization all across the board.

We've made progress! If just a little, we have made progress.  I am working directly with Comcast Spotlight Productions to put together a set of commercial spots for next year's campaign as well as getting started on character design and conceptualization.  I know that this will be the best part of my day, working on what I love most (marketing and pr/advertising) so I will need to pace myself along the week to not get too discouraged or tired of constant bullshit that I receive from this company day in and day out.

On a side note, upgrading out employee uniforms is second on the list (only to our website) and should be addressed very soon.  So finding a clothing distributer is on the agenda for the month of October, with a strong hope of having them picked, created and delivered no later than the first week of November (gotta love small budget businesses).

Hey, today I'm not depressed, but I'm not happy. I guess it could be worse.

East Meets West

So, after the other day's post I had to sit down and really think about what was about to happen. To do this I did a short list of commands. Select "Kanye West"|Select All|Play and that's all it took.  I simultaneously watched Kanye's concert in Singapore while I was listening to hit after hit after hit. I reminisced about days of DVC, of Sargon Shots, of Tuesday house parties and Wednesday classes.  When Benny and Claude discovered the art of continued listening and found Graduation Day, when my song was Spaceship (I was the Gap like Banana Republic and Old Navy), and as I transitioned to his Late Registration I found myself in San Diego where, to date, I lived THE GREATEST YEAR OF MY LIFE.  I was Gone off those Roses as this Crack Music forced me to Drive Slow on My Way Home.

Kanye did it over and over again, as his pinnacle was reached on his Graduation, I too took to the seats and sat cap and gowned. That whole album was a hit, like Barry Bonds.  Almost Everything I Am I owe, in some way, to Kanye West and his music. I Wonder if my Good Morning was what made me Stronger, what gave me the Good Life, what brought all those Drunk and Hot Girls and Flashing Lights.  But, alas, I was Heartless when he dropped 808's and Heartbreaks. He had changed, he had lost a lot. I thought he turned his back on us when he made such a evolutionary album... I now know that it was, in fact, revolutionary and evolutionary, and I was merely a single celled organism in the primordial pool that is Kanye West.

How can one man have so much Power.

Power

Just when I thought my world was a shade of black and white, Kanye comes through with a splash of gold.  I hope to speak for all Kanye fans when I say it's about time.  I'm still in a state of shock, so here's the video.
Power

Hip Hop Saved My Life

Music is prevalent in our society. In some ways it guides our everyday thoughts, our intentions, our lives.  Music is our inspiration. Music is our reason for being. Can you imagine a world without music? Nothing but the sounds of footsteps, horns and chatter. Doesn't sound like a place I want to be.

I've avidly collected music since torrents were just scour.net (and if you remember scour than I applaud you).  When singles were in and albums were rare, I was trolling through websites, peer2peer programs and friendly PCs searching for my next fix. Alternative, trance, 80's hits, rap, or hip-hop; just one genre wasn't enough.  From that point on in my life I realized that I had a permanent soundtrack in my head that would never stop playing, and I'm thankful for it.  Lupe Fiasco once stated that "hip hop saved my life", I can speak for myself when I say that it definitely saved mine and it does so 'til today.

In the passed few years, we've seen a inverse in the evolution of music or the way it is distributed.  From LPs to CDs, music is slowly losing its place in the brick and mortar building it called home for over five decades.  Music is becoming a commodity among the billions of bites of information within the online universe.  Slowing finding its way into secured and masked websites that distribute this digital crack by the millions to fans who don't see the light.

Fans who don't know that, as a whole, we can revolt. We can say that we wont pay.  We have been placed in the position to feel bound by these laws, these rules.  File sharing was just about that, sharing. It transformed the music industry.  Hurt and helped thousands of fans and artists alike.  It's refreshing to know that there will always be balance in this world.

Hip-Hop saved my life and I want to return the favor.

Social Nightmare

What if there was a social networking site that was set to broadcast our relationships? Not with our friends or family members, but with our girlfriends, our husbands, our most private lives publicly spewed for the world to see. Imagine this site as a way for the world to better learn the inter workings of relationships; what's been working, and what hasn't been; whether you're problem is yours only, or if there are others with experience to share. A site where daily thoughts aren't "Going shopping with the girls, getting tans at 5 and then Club Domingo all night loooonnng!!!", but more like "We talked about it, for the first time we shared our differences and it really worked".

Is there cause for concern? The beauty behind this is that as this site grows it becomes a database of relationships; a collection of years of experience in problem solving, sharing lives, escaping without leaving, sex, lies and video tapes. But your question is, why would people want to join this? What would I get out of this if my boyfriend knew that I was talking about how he cries during scary movies? Anonymity is the response I can give you, as a user you'll be prompted to enter a username (like AOL 3.0 yay!) or to display your full name (think about the clinical psychologist, sex doctors and gynochologists that would love to advertise their ideas); so you can stay anonymous or you can be up front about who you are. The point isn't to create a steamy site of pornographic material, but to create a massive relationship management site where couples of all types, creeds and styles can come together to share experiences, thoughts or just to browse content.

Think about it America. If you can share daily life on facebook, twitter, myspace or any other social networking site, why cant you share your daily life... just the intimate side?

Upkeep

You'd think that I would have the time to at least post something every month, clearly I (and you) were very wrong. Today, of all days, I feel the need to express my confusion on the subject of "the 80's/90's are coming back"...

I foresaw a problem when Alien Ant Farm first did a cover for Michael Jackson's "Smooth Criminal", smoothly casting the spell over audiences as Michael released a new album "for the fans". Fast forward a couple year and we have the birth and rise of now pop mega-icon, Kanye West. The theme "a child of the 80's" has been streamlined as of late and we're seeing a distorted agenda from both the youth and the matured. Stars of all shapes and sizes are bringing back to life what this generation has only heard about. Is it so bad though? During the 80's and early 90's, fashion and media were outrageously outrageous. MC Hammer pants and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles live vicariously though us. Please, if you can, take a stab at some of the old programs that we used to watch as children...don't make me name them as I've been having nightmares of hairish creatures with sideways pony tails and 8-bit movie soundtracks pulsating through the right side of my brain.

Is if fair to let this generation re-live the 80's and 90's? Well we have the second war in Iraq (the first one was in the early 90's), we're bringing back the colors "hot pink, hot green, hot orange, and any other deviation of 'hot' and 'color'" and, as always, we're remaking every single movie or tv show from this time. This is my problem. Have we ultimately run out of creativity? Have we succumbed to the comfort of our lives? Has the hidden hierarchy of Hollywood triggered a fixation of past loves and decided (for us all) that we will re-live their lives, their way?

I saw off with the "hot" colors and on with the platinums and aluminums... I want to dress like a spaceman and I want to do it now... why not? Aren't we in the future?

Another Day, Another Website

So the company I work for has me doing a lot of tasks that don't generally coincide with my specialized method of study: Marketing. But in fact, since all aspects of business encompass the art of marketing I guess they're on the right track. So before I delve into what has my mind running a muck I should first explain where I work and what it is I really do.

I work for a Soul Food Restaurant chain from Chicago, IL called JJ Fish and Chicken. It was first brought to California and started on International Blvd. in Oakland just five years ago. Today we are seven strong and are working on the eighth location. Before I started, each store operated its own marketing/advertising agenda. Each manager was in charge of anything and everything related to the functionality of its location, a method that is not conducive to a possible franchise-in-the-making.

Today, I not only work on advertising, marketing and operations as a whole but also research and development and human resources. All-in-all, I'm the Jack of All Trades here at JJ's and I have a lot on my table (pardon the pun). The problem that has arisen today is the creation of a website, a method of branding and of consumer herding. You might think of this as a simple concept or idea and it really shouldn't stress or take too much of my day to get this ball rolling. In fact, it is hardly simple to devise a website that not only promises to deliver our Vision and Mission as a company, but to properly direct our customers to where we (and where they) want to go.

My first order of business is to decipher who or what our company logo will be. We have always had a logo, so I guess the term "icon" is more relevant at this moment in time. What is our icon? Jack in the Box has Jack, McDonald's has Ronald, Burger King has "the King" and Wendy's has Wendy... see the trend? JJ Fish and Chicken should have two characters - one fish and one chicken. Both should have names that start with J and both should have opposing personalities that meld exceptionally well with each other and their origin.

To create these personas I will first need to come up with a character concept, as well as find an artists to render these into designs and then find a costume designer to put them together. I have two ideas, one is to have two full body suits (retrofitted to look more like a regular everyday fit, rather than a mascot) or to have just two masks on the heads of each mascot. Both concepts make it easy to find actors as each representation doesn't necessarily derive from the person behind the mask, but from the mask instead.

After this process is finished, we'll have the floodgates opened to two very encouraging directions: out website and our advertising campaign. This is where I will leave you, for now I must put together our characters and find us a costume designer.

An Alliance of One

Nerd moment.

My Wind-Rider and Gryphon Plushies just came in the mail today and I'm ecstatic. Their attention to detail is incalculable and their level of "soft" is unprecedented. I bought the Wind-Rider for Joey so that he can take it back to St. John's and have a new addition to his dorm room, while I can keep the Gryphon and always remember my true colors (Blue and Gold!)

Double-Sided

I woke up today having one of those "at least top 5" weird feelings. Lately I've been sleeping at the foot of my bed, rather than the proper direction where the two pillows are up top. This was a random habit of mine when I was a kid, I can't really recall when or why I would do this... I just did. Anyways, I woke up today with my feet on a pillow and it struck me that at that moment, while my eyes were still closed and there was no direct light from an affirmative direction, that I could be sleeping in either direction! When I opened my eyes I was lying at the foot of my bed, yet again, and I then realized that I, deep down inside, knew that I was.

I was just then asking myself what was going on in my life to reverse me that way, why did I change the direction in which I was sleeping. I started to think about my stress and whether that was the answer to this pivotal question in my average life. Maybe it was. I noticed that I started craving cigarettes again. I actually smoked two, one today and one yesterday. That's a lie, I smoked one the day before that too... that's three. Three strikes.

I am remembering my life before my move home and I am missing certain aspects that I never thought I'd miss again. I miss being alone. I miss the beach. I miss being a slave to knowledge.

Ten Seconds From Full Blast

Two-Thousand Ten is underway and things have always been interesting, but this year they're tantalizing. Life has started off with three things always to be weary of: the girlfriend, the job, the life. Having to balance three things with two hands has put the pendullum on auto-rotate and left out the counter-weights. As a way to motivate myself, I've decided to start pushing myself to implement my work, my life and my relationship through my blog...mainly as a way to help alleviate my stress and display my inner workings and emotions for not just my friends and family, but for myself. Today I'm going to go on an adventure and take some pictures...since I haven't done this in a long time I hope that through my Blacks and Whites I'll bring some color into my life.