OFFBEAT

Long after work and a few appointments, I ended up in the passenger seat of my own car in a scenic route down Pacific Coast Highway.

We made it out of Santa Monica alive, passing through a series of just...different things. I rolled the window down and partially stuck my head out, resting it on my limp arm. The music blared loudly through my speakers. By now, they've been halfway blown out and only a loud, static buzz is all I hear at volume 34.

I closed my eyes and felt the cool breeze running past my face. A collective mixture of restaurants, cafes, and bars all passed by as we sped on through the green lights - all oddly shaped and oddly named.

"I want to go there," I pointed. "Annnnnd...there." I pointed again.

At some point, I reverted back into my Millennial tendencies and withdrew into my phone. I read - let's be honest - skimmed through an article on Facebook. "11-Year-Old Chinese Boy Donates Organs to Other Patients on Deathbed." I softly told George about the little boy who suffered from a brain tumor and my voice cracked. Without warning, I felt the tears rolling from my eyes and down my cheeks. The floodgates have been opened. A swell of sadness hit my chest with a sharp pain and I sobbed a little more. I fucking lost it.

After a few minutes, I got over it and started thinking about how many beaches and cities we've driven through in the course of the past 15 minutes. I even saw a Fry's Electronics somewhere in what I guessed to be Manhattan Beach. I scoffed and smiled at that. We were both tired and wanted to head home. It was less of a death trap driving locally than being stuck in a gridlock on the freeways. Rush hour in So-Cal is like staring at an anatomical chart of the region. All blood-red veins marked on every highway, with several accidents and questionable icons that I had yet to identify as anything good.

I peeked my head back out again and breathed in the salty air. We stopped at a traffic light and I watched the Domino's employees make their pizzas for delivery. One worker saw me, and lit up in a smile as he waved his arm back and forth. I returned the wave as the light turned green.

I later had a mini meltdown in which I promptly threw my phone out of my room. It was the heavy medication that they've had me on, and it really got me ransacking through the subconscious closet of my brain. Every thought was an article of clothing, hung crookedly on a colored plastic hanger. I tore through this closet and threw everything out. I didn't need those. I haven't worn these things in a while, and it was time to get rid of it all. I confronted and confided in two people I love very much about my pain. What I have been carrying on my shoulders, I finally got off my chest. It felt amazing.

Now moving onto what I'm currently watching...

MINDSET RADIO

Life has been moving consistently uphill for me lately. Granted, I have grown into accrediting myself for the hard work I've put in. I used to be harder on myself. But now, I leave it to no one to either scold or acknowledge me for my thoughts and actions.

Personally, I think it's a great improvement. I was a sponge, completely empty of opinions and emotions that could withstand the tides of others' and their effect on me. Instead, I absorbed them from people around me or the environment I'm in. That makes me seem like an absolute tool bag. No no, a sponge. But I did have a mind of my own. It was just figuratively a lot harder to talk over the loudness around me.

And does this new change make me care less about the wellbeing of others? Well, yes and no. On one hand, I could care less about making an impression and bending or flexing to fit a mold. It can make me come across as sarcastic or standoffish. At this point, I don't even know if standoffish is a word. But bear with me. But on another hand, it helps me filter out all the little things that I shouldn't really be concerned with. And this clears my mind to care about the bigger scheme of things. If you're a friend or family member I care very much for, and you're healthy and alive, then I leave it to you to worry or work on any other problems in your life because that's what I'm doing with my own. It really eases my stress level and reminds me that I cannot control the water around me. Just my itty, bitty ship in this big, blue sea.

Because of this, I have pulled a lot of worry weeds planted in the back of my head and began investing in valuing things that will matter to me in, say, a year. Or two.

Side note, though:

Someone had stolen a pair of jeans, a couple of leggings, and a few pairs of underwear from my laundry while it was drying yesterday evening. I saw my upstairs neighbor standing outside as I left my clothes to dry in the laundry facility. He was smoking by the no-smoking sign and watching me.

Sure, I've nonchalantly filed a noise complaint before. But living below three adults, three children, and a small dog crammed into a 2-bedroom apartment does often sound like I'm living below a bowling alley. Or a haunted unit where disturbed souls go to open and close sliding closet doors. Or kids throwing each other off their bunk beds. Whatever it is, it's loud. And I can't help but invent a device that sends a seismic pulse mimicking a 6.0-8.0 earthquake to centralize only in their apartment when I hear them.

Let your problems unfurl, guys. I've already ordered replacement clothes online, for what I can recall missing. Of course, that's me connecting the theft to them. But it's just me playing with stories in my head. I'm not too mad. I know I'm not going to be here for long. And (applying my change of thinking) I'm probably not going to remember my missing clothes a year from now. I am, however, a bit perturbed on the whereabouts of my underwear.

(End side note.)

I used to get more bummed out than I should on Sundays. "I have to go back to work tomorrow." "What did I do this whole weekend?" "Did I waste it away, yet again?" Those thoughts no longer arise as I realized that I enjoy my job and I enjoyed my weekend. Every single bit of it.

Now to make myself a mimosa or something...

I DON'T EVEN PLAY GAMES, BUT...

I freaking love Evolve's new logo. Evolve is a sci-fi co-op first-person shooter due for release sometime in 2014. And although I know less than nothing about games, I know what I like. And I like this logo.

Wait. Didn't I just say that?

I caught a glimpse of this little piece of work from Kotaku's post on my feed. "The Best Video Game Logo in a Long Time," it read. Oh, really? I decided to investigate further. Needless to say, I was more than disappointed to see a poorly constructed, measly excuse of a paragraph under the image. "The game this logo is for is multiplayer." Seriously? That's how you're going to start out? Read that shit out loud, Stephen Totilo. Don't forget to detangle your tongue afterwards. I mean, what the freaking fuck.

Here's why I think this logo works:

Simplicity: You can usually spot a logo that's trying too hard. In most cases, it's a logo that doesn't look like it's trying at all. Logos with too much flash and too little to say are usually pretty to look at, but why put your brand out there for consumers to mentally hit it and quit it? The most successful logos say as much as they can without the extra fluff. It's like budgeting for a Super Bowl commercial spot. Businesses are racking up millions of dollars to get an all-too-brief moment in the spotlight. And for what? To expose their brand, to evoke an emotional response, to be remembered, and to sell. Pick one. It's most likely all of those reasons. And you want to cram all of this into a mere thirty seconds, risking to be overlooked as your commercial plays during bathroom breaks and beer runs? Although this was more of a tangent than sin/cos ever will be, the point is to make EVERYTHING count or mean something. A logo is no exception.

Concept: Evolve's logo is pretty high up there in concept. It is virtually a representation/explanation of the game's premise. I mean, come on. That's freaking awesome. Most script readers roll their eyes aspiring screenwriters who can't sum up their movie in a sentence or two. This logo practically sets up the play arena by existing.

Negative Space: The colored shapes enclosing the letters leaves room to play with negative space. The red orange squares personify the letters as units, or in this case, individual players. The black background, or negative space, double up to separate these units.

Multi-Functional: Let's keep in mind that the game is a multiplayer with four players pitted against the fifth, who happens to be a giant monster with abilities that equate to the others. The second V in the word floats in the black abyss of a background to represent "versus", or used to frequent as "VS". It's set to not only divide the two parties, but can also be interpreted as the roman numeral for 5. How many players are in this game, again? The letters EVOL each reside in their own designated squares, each representing a player. The trailing bar following the last letter has the same length as the four preceding red orange squares do when they are stacked next to each other. This makes complete sense - four players versus the fifth, with the fifth exerting just as much power as the other four. You can also say that the giant monster (last letter E) evolved into the strength of its opposition, with the way the colored bar behind this E is elongated or warped to match the length of the others.

This isn't ground breaking news. This logo is fun to pick apart for those who understand, and still easy on the eyes for those don't. All of these are just my observations, but they're not just mine. I really appreciate how something so simple can be so effective...all because a little more thought was put into it.

SLEEP, AT LAST

I've always felt that I lacked sleep. I've been falling asleep whenever I'm hanging out with friends, and constantly feeling the guilt for it. But what started as an episodic cat nap yesterday turned into a trilogy of epic...well, sleep.

For the next 14 hours, I dreamed of reading a book in a small town ice cream parlor. Got recruited by some undergraduate film students to narrate for their project. Got stuck in the parlor's bathroom stall. Walked with a friend for miles to his aunt's house, carrying too many of my purses and his duffel bags. Went hiking and camping with all of my friends. Watched a bunch of neurotic high school students cause an uprising in their prep institute by opening classroom doors and screaming carpe diem themed lines. It inspired me to dress as a zombie pirate to yet another Pirates of the Caribbean screening, and my friends followed suit. I spent the day lounging out in a pool with my little brothers and a few friends. One of them ordered Italian food and I opted for the caprice salad.

I remember everything. It was a grand adventure, far different than the usual, abrupt scenes of confusion and bloody murder. I always seem to dream about questionable things and wake up feeling lost or worried. It spills over to my waking life and haunts me throughout the day. Because of it, I find it in me to constantly question the intentions of others. This long, dragged out dream of ice cream, film projects, friends, walks, sunsets, camping, family, carpe diem and even my goddamn caprice salad all made up for the countless nights of incomplete sleep, waking up before my alarm or just feeling that something is amiss.

My boyfriend would always tell me about his dreams, all drawn-out tales of post-apocalyptic action-packed adventures with his friends and his favorite older brother in tow. He'd fight dragons, robots, zombies and men who were out to court me. His dreams would take place in castles, baron lands, or even outer space. They were spectacular and easy to envy. So while I was left with a snippet or a few scenes to sum up the totality of my night's sleep, he recalls his slumber in crisp, high definition detail.

I feel as though I was finally given a chance to experience something good, and different, at best. Although it doesn't lie in the same sci-fi realm as my boyfriend's, it's a start. It might not be a noteworthy experience to some, but it is to me. It's about fucking time.

FORT-MAKING TIME

Introversion at its finest. Talking about installing mini-fridges and microwaves.

ON REPEAT

Doing a little experiment on myself.

Gonna write some things down, stop when I've hit a brick wall, then drink. Anything I write after I drink is under the "Not Sober" section.

Sober:

Wish there was a monetary incentive for getting your taxes done early. The sooner, the higher the compensation. I'm sure there'd still be stragglers.

Every year, I try to squeeze every dollar back from both federal and state. As the imaginary coins jingle and jangle in their pockets, I shake harder. I could have sworn there was more deducted from me last year than what I got back. Touche, government.

Money rants aside, I recently came across a blog of someone I know. It was filled with long words that made little sense put together. The thesaurus was her bible, but her understanding of it was quite limited. And I get it, I get it. She was just trying to seem mysterious and philosophical. All I got from reading it was grayscale pictures of household items and a try-too-hipster vibe. And I've got nothing against her - nothing! College and exotic-looking friends will do that to people. Well, it did something to her.

Not Sober:

Shit talking aside, I didn't really mean to shit talk. But I have a feeling I'm going to. I'm not even in a bad mood or anything. I mean, what I really want to do right now is make a fruit smoothie and mix little EDT tracks on my iPhone with the volume on blast.

My mind wanders...

I always feel primitive when I'm scratching my head. How can you look smart scratching your head? We've familiarized ourselves with the notion that scratching one's head is symbol for stupidity or dull thinking. But you know what? My head was itchy.

SALLY FORTH

Lipstick smeared and mascara stained,

Sally holds her breath.

They pounded on the bathroom door

but Sally's high on meth.

1 SECOND EVERYDAY

My entire year of 2013 can be summed up in a matter of six minutes or so. Inspired by Cesar Kuriyama's 1SE project, I decided to film a second of each and every day for an entire year. Needless to say, I spent the greater majority of New Year's Day putting together a compilation that still ended up flawed in both quality and accuracy. My high-def vid file format nearly tanked the YouTube uploader with its jurassic 1.46 GB in size. So here's a lesser version of it while I enjoy the real deal in the comforts of my own Macbook (not that you care, lolz). I found it uncomfortably fast but still refreshingly nostalgic.

MONTHLY

June.

Internships + production gigs, class, and late nights.

July.
Lazy days, busy schedule, and the celebration of summer.

August.

Freelancing, job offer, and a change of pace.

September.

A sense of stability, introversion, and my birthday.

October.

Haunt, taco costume, and a get together.

November.

Food in excess, packing boxes, and family.

December.

Projects, first time snowboarding, and Christmas in general.