Author: Sam

I’ve never been good at high-fives. It’s true. Ask anyone who has ever attempted to share a triumphant moment of victory with me. Go on… ask ’em. They’ll say something like, “Yeah… Sam and I won that tournament thingy and, in celebration, we attempted a high-five. That’s how I got this terrifying, Xamot-like scar on my face. If I ever see that bastard again, I’m gonna rip his…” You get the idea.

I don’t really know where the culprit lies. Is it depth perception? Hand eye coordination? Lack of coolness? Well, regardless of the cause, I feel that this ineptitude has the tendency to squelch all of the excitement from the moment that instigated it in the first place. Essentially, after the high-five failure, it’s hard to carry on with the original joyous moment. I killed it. I killed all of the fun. Damn these hands!

Before I go off to grad school, I feel as though I should attempt to smooth out my high-five skills. I can only assume that there will be a lot of high-fiving during class. Like, “Hey Sam, way to go on your thesis! *high-five* ARGHHH!!! My eye!”

FUN FACT: In the process of looking for a photo… I mean, drawing of Xamot, I discovered that the name of the Cobra Emperor (from the G.I. Joe cartoons and comics) is spelled “Serpentor” and not “Sir Pentor.” Initially, I had just assumed that some dude named Pentor had been knighted (like Sir Bill Gates) thus creating “Sir Pentor.” I’ve been living a lie for the past 20 years.

I’m trying really, really, really hard to not blog about how crappy things are at work right now. Oh… I guess that I just did. Ah well… and now for something completely different…

WARNING: While the following entry is brilliant in every way, the subject matter has been known to make queasy those with weak stomachs. Read with caution.

Flesh. Not only is it chewy and delicious, but… wait, that’s not it. Let me start over: Flesh. Living tissue. Miraculous, regenerative, living tissue. When I crash my body into something, I bruise… sometimes I bleed (often I swear). But amazingly enough, I heal. Give my body time and I can heal almost any flesh wound. Truly amazing!

When I crash my car into something, it dents, scratches, or cracks. That costs me money and time and aggravation. I need to have it fixed. I need to bring it somewhere and pay someone to fix it. That’s lame! Totally lame and totally antiquated. Imagine however, that the body of my car was made out of living flesh instead of cold, dead steel and plastic. I could simply give it some time (maybe rub in some Neosporin) and it would heal itself. Problem solved.

Sure… why not? I’m no fancy shmancy bio-engineer or anything, but come on… how hard could it be to graft some living tissue onto a car’s framework. (And just think, you could get your car a cool flame tattoo.)

As far as maintenance? Well, I’m not really sure. I’d assume that one would have to rub on some protective balm for the cold winter months… maybe some sunscreen during the summer… and then there’s the occasional pimple to attend to… it’s a labor of love really.

Hmmm… since this is living tissue that we’re talking about, we’ll have to feed it somehow. Our flesh car needs nutrients. And since we’re feeding it, it’ll most likely create some kind of waste material. Uh… I guess that’ll need to be disposed of. And can the flesh die? Can it contract disease? Will it start to rot? Flesh cars will rot instead of rust… weird. And creepy.

Ok… admittedly, this Flesh Car idea of mine is a tad underdeveloped. I recognize this and I’m ok with it. In fact, this is specifically why I’m blogging about it. I am generously open sourcing the Flesh Car. Yes! As of right now, the Flesh Car is open source. Go internet, go! Take this idea… run with it! Frolic in the autumn mist! Do whatever you need to do to make Flesh Car a reality.

Anyway, I’m kinda grossing myself out… so, I guess that’s it.

I’m feeling… ummm… less bad than yesterday. Thanks for your concern, thanks for letting me vent, and thanks for sending the good vibes my way (I didn’t actually receive any of the aforementioned “good vibes”… my personal firewall probably prevented the vibes from making it through. I’ll have to check with the admin).

And now… on to more important things. Like The Mars Volta.

My pal, Mike, introduced me to The Mars Volta some time ago. He handed me a burned CD (for purely back-up purposes, of course) and said, “Listen to this. It’s interesting. You’ll like it.” It was a copy of the album De-Loused in the Comatorium.

I listened to that CD for about two weeks straight. Every track turned corners into areas of sound that I would have never expected. It kept me guessing. And Interested. And, just as I thought that I had them figured out, The Mars Volta pulls something completely amazing out of nowhere.

But, what do they sound like? It’s impossible to put these guys in a little box like that. Standard rock setup; vocals, guitars, bass, drums. What are they though? Punk, emo, hardcore, prog… The Mars Volta consists of components of hugely unrelated musical styles. But not in the way that their style might seem unfocused or scattered. No. On the contrary, it is intensely focused, densely layered, and impossible to ignore. The Mars Volta is not background music.

Their newest endeavor, Frances the Mute (which I was able to get a preview of a couple of months ago), is out now. In many ways, it is an extension of De-Loused. This album however, has the potential of being its superior, emotionally matured, successor. I have been listening to the full work, without rest since yesterday.

Frances the Mute is amazing. Go buy it. Now!

This weekend was strange. In everything that I did, I continuously felt as though I was one step behind everyone else. I couldn’t keep up with anyone… physically, socially, intellectually, emotionally. I don’t know why. Maybe I had a lot on my mind… actually, I know that I had a lot on my mind.

Have you ever felt that way? Like, no matter what you are doing, your timing is just off. And it is off by such a minute amount that it’s hardly perceptible, nevertheless it is fucking everything up.

Grrr…

Well, anyway… it is Monday morning. It is sunny outside, yet the looming workweek hangs overhead like a bleak storm cloud… about to rain bricks on the unsuspecting masses below. Ok… I really need to stop listening to Lacrimas Profundere first thing on Monday morning (Lacrimas Profundere translates into something like “weeping profusely”).

I don’t know. Maybe when the coffee kicks in I will be feeling a bit more cheerful.

Oh my god. Y’all have to see how the upcoming version of Mac OS (10.4 Tiger) integrates an rss feed with a screen saver (from Engadget). I’m feeling dizzy.

Apple, I love you so much. Let’s marry and have fruit flavored babies.

Ughhh… actually, nevermind.

By now, everyone knows that I will be going to grad school in the fall. And in my wake, I will be leaving a lot of things behind. I will be leaving Massachusetts. I will be leaving Northampton. I will be leaving my radical housemates… etc. I will also be leaving behind my job. And while it is not a bad job… the people that I work with are awesome, they buy me whatever toys I want, the pay is good, they leave me alone enough to post blog entries whilst at work… I am simply not happy here. I am not being challenged and I have a lot of skills that are just rotting away. In short, I will be happy to move on. And now, I have come to the point of this post… the crux, if you will. So, pay attention. As of right this instant, there are exactly 85 days, 5 hours, and 52 minutes until that last glorious moment of work. And how do I know this (without doing any of that hideous math)? Well, I simply looked at my menu bar, of course (see photo). Now it reads, “85 days, 5 hours, and 50 minutes until the end.”

The little app that is allowing me to have this customized countdown (constantly taunting me with its promise of freedom… so close, yet so far) is a piece of freeware, aptly named Countdown. This application only does one thing, but it does it well.

If you have an impending moment of glory (or doom) in your future, you might want to play with this little app. It is helping me to remember that there is hope in my future… and I only have to suffer through a painful 85 days, 5 hours, and 43 minutes to get there.

The paper clip is obsolete technology.

Long live the BINDER CLIP!

Hip hip hooray!

I’m tired of sitting. All I do, all day long, is sit.

One of the many freelance projects that I worked on in Berkeley, had an amazingly efficient and comfortable workspace. The studio area that I worked in was truly a breath of fresh air. The outer wall of the space was lined with a huge desk surface that wrapped around most of the wall. It allowed for a massive surface area on which projects could be spread out. The most impressive part however, was that the wall desk rose to about four to five feet high. The surface of the the desk was slightly lower than chest level (and as I recall, the desk surface was fastened to the wall in such a way that its height could be adjusted to plus/minus six inches or so). The chairs that accompanied the wall desks, where these awesome adjustable, rolling, comfy stool chairs. You could work sitting down… or you could stand and let your legs stretch out. Surprisingly, that small feature was hugely conducive to productivity. It kept me awake… kept the blood flowing and my brain active.

I would love to employ that type of workspace environment here… I’m afraid however, that that kind of forward thinking would clash with the beige walls.

From the depths of the tepid inferno, my pal Mike, proponent of the almighty flamethrower, blogs about the wintertime benefits of flamethrower ownership. Words and illustrations by Mike himself… this is a blog entry not to miss.

As a winter related side note, three quarters of the crew at my homestead are going snowboarding tonight. Yea! I haven’t been in more than two years. But my board is freshly waxed, my snow pants are one size too small, and my boots are just as uncomfortable as ever. So I feel ready. My only question is whether I’ll be able to blog in a full body cast… and whether the hospital has wireless internet. Let’s hope so, because that is where I will be inevitably spending my weekend.

I decided early Monday morning (while at work) that I definitely was not going to work the following day. I knew that it was going to snow. And lately, I’ve been so unmotivated to do the work thing. So, I stayed up pretty late (for me) that night with my housemate, Sarah. We were just talking and laughing… and it didn’t take much coercing to get her to take the next day off too. Nice. Little did I know however, that before she went to sleep, she put a note on my housemate Micah’s door that read something like “You’re not going to work tomorrow. It’s a mandatory snow day!” (Ok… I made up the verbiage. That’s not what it said, but thats the gist.)

I awoke yesterday morning to the sounds of my housemates gleefully talking about the mandatory snow day that we’ve declared for the household. I joined the ruckus and all seemed right with the world. The snow was falling calmly but steadily. It was beautiful outside and I wanted to be a part of it. Micah and I decided that an outdoor adventure was in order. Shortly there after, we left on an excursion… armed with little more than a thirst for exploration and one digital camera apiece.

Our adventure lead us to the Northampton State Hospital. Also know as the ABANDONED INSANE ASYLUM. Yep… you read that correctly. In Northampton, Massachusetts, there is an abandoned hospital for the mentally ill. It’s one of the creepiest and most frightening places that I have ever been to. The hospital itself, appears as if it was plucked straight out of a horror movie. It stands atop a hill, tall and bold against the gray sky (imagine the hotel from the Shining… but much less ornate). Despite its decay, the external structure seems sound (the rotting interior is another story). Its perimeter winds and snakes across the premises, creating hidden alcoves and expansive courtyards.

Abandoned insane asylum? Come on… seems too good to be true, I know… but it is true.

The main building is surrounded by two layers of chain link fence (to keep punks like us out). Thanks to some earlier expeditions by other adventurous souls, there are holes in the fencing. You have to search for them… but they are there. Once you penetrate the outer defenses, you can actually get to the building (it’s even creepier up close… when you can see its nuances and intricacies). Every single first and second floor window and door is either boarded or barred. We tried in many places to pull the boards off, but to no avail. They were firmly bolted into place. Despite the hulking masses of muscle that describe Micah and I, we just couldn’t budge them. That is, until we found one that had been mostly removed.

The board mechanism was more of a plug than a simple covering. It fit entirely into the window cavity rather than just covering the hole. This one in particular was out of its home and on the ground. Unfortunately, it was frozen into the ground and still mostly covering the window. Try as we may, Micah and I could not get it out of the way. Micah however, was able to maneuver his body through the tiny and awkward space that was available. I watched him do this. Trust me, it defied all logic. I have no idea how he got himself through. But he did. And I couldn’t. We decided that he’d do some spelunking, and I’d continue to look for another way in. Shortly after we parted ways… like 10 seconds later, Micah called to me from inside of the building. He had found a wide open window, a mere 15 feet behind where we were struggling to get in. I can’t believe we hadn’t seen it from the outside. We must have walked right passed it.

The window touched the ground… it was a basement window and it lead underneath the hospital. It was narrow, but big enough for a body to pass through. It even had stairs right to the side of the window. It was the ideal entrance. And I entered. And once inside, it felt as though I had been swallowed whole by the asylum itself. The utter blackness of the basement was overpowering. What little light the window let in was absorbed and thoroughly devoured by the darkness. And it was dark… pitch black.

I mentioned earlier that one of the only objects that we brought on our adventure, was a digital camera for each of us. It was great that we had those devices. The flash was our only means of seeing in the dark. Every ten seconds or so, one of us would take a random photo in the total darkness. The underground labyrinth would illuminate for a fraction of a second. Sometimes there would be a wall in front of us. Sometimes a door. Sometimes there would be a corridor. We needed to find stairs. We had to get out of the basement. And we were going pretty deep too. I was starting to wonder if we would be able to find our way back. But lo and behold, after many turns, a few dead ends, and the most frightening corridor, we found stairs. They were ice covered from a leaking hole in the ceiling. And they were treacherous. But they were stairs. And they went up… ascending us out of darkness.

I think it’s best to tell the rest of the story with the photos Micah and I took along the way. Enjoy…

A few things to note: These photos have not been photoshopped or cropped in any way. They have been resized. They are in no particular order. This is not all of them. Clicking on any of the photos will launch the bigger versions. Click here to see all of the photos that I took. Click here to see all of the photos that Micah took. (These are fairly large files) And finally, I just want to stress that all of the basement shots that you see were taken in TOTAL darkness. Which is why some of the photos are tilted and positioned poorly. Every photo in the basement was taken just so the flash would go off and we could see. Getting actual usable photos was a bonus! And, as it turns out, some of the blind basement photos are my favorites…

going out… chair at the bottom of the stairs.

going in… using the camera as our flash light. this was pitch black.

3rd floor. creepy curtains.

searching for a way out of the basement. pitch black.

searching for a way out of the basement. pitch black.

searching for a way out of the basement. pitch black.

searching for a way out of the basement. pitch black.

3rd floor. this haze seemed to follow us around. however, it only showed up on film.

searching for a way out of the basement. pitch black.

3rd floor.

first floor.

on the way out (i think). again, this was pitch black.

3rd floor. the haze follows.

3rd floor. gaping hole.

this is the window i came through.

hospital. first view.

on the way out.

following micah. searching for stairs.

incriminating shot of micah.

searching for stairs. following micah. there’s that haze again.

i love this shot. this was in the pitch black. i had no idea that micah was standing there when i took the shot. very blair witch…

micah. clearly going insane.

no trespassing?

a noose?

on the way out. that’s my arm.

an exterior shot.

see those towers? micah was in one of them taking this photo.

me. pondering the meaning of that sign.

outside toilet?

3rd floor. creepy door.

me. in attic. looking surprisingly chipper.

me. 1st floor. with the haze.

me. 3rd floor. the haze.

finding our way out.

and finally.. the big scary door.

Before I let you flee in horror, I’d like to comment on the haze. I’ve read that ghost hunters go to supposedly haunted places and take a bunch of random photos. Apparently, these ghostly hazes only show up on film. You can’t see them until you look at the photos. Micah and I both did not see the haze during the journey. Only when we opened our photos later did we notice it. The haze showed up on both of our cameras. The haze showed up in well lit shots as well as the pitch black ones. There are more shots of the haze here and here.

Ok. Thinking back, the most amazing thing about this adventure is the fact that neither one of us bled, walked away limping, or was arrested. Possessed by the souls of the insane… maybe. But at least we didn’t spend the night in jail.

(Instead, we spent the day in an insane asylum. Yea!)