Don't Talk On Your Cell Phone While You Are Shopping

don't talk on your cell phone while you are shopping

stores are not appropriate places to have personal conversations. a quick conversation is okay, but other than that, just don't. please.

a customer today was talking on her phone while she was walking towards the fitting rooms, hoping to try on her selected apparel. she did not stop talking to politely ask me if she could try on said items. instead, with hardly a look in my direction, she pointed towards me and then towards the fitting rooms, ordering me to tend to her needs. there was already a room unlocked. I just pointed her towards the open door. 

another customer was on her phone for the entire length of her visit to my little place of employment. she did not interact with any of the employees, she continued to talk while trying on things (I don't know how this is done. I need to hands to get dressed. maybe she was hiding a third and that's why she avoided human interaction), and even continued her conversation while returning one shirt and purchasing another (while talking to her phone companion about said returned shirt). even at the register she didn't pause once in her conversation to address us employees. there were four of us just looking at her while she avoided eye contact. then she left, still on the phone. the whole experience lasted at least a half an hour. and I can tell you, based on the one side of the conversation that I did hear, it did not sound urgent.

both of these women left messes in the fitting rooms for me to clean up, but that is another point that I may or may not address at another time.

is it too much to ask, as a retail employee, to be treated like a human being? before I was one of these under-appreciated and hard-working individuals I would have said no. but now my opinion has changed. you may have noticed that I just wrote that retail employees are hard-working. don't ever let anyone tell you anything different. we are on our feet all day. those of us who do not ring walk back and forth (always at a brisk pace) countless times throughout the day. some of us do things like set up shelving, put together visual displays, unpack shipment, etc. it can get pretty labor intensive. and for me at least, this is all done in work appropriate clothing.

so please, respect the employees when you shop.

collaboration!

so my friend tim lewis is doing a not-so-dry-and boring retelling of the bible over on his blog and he asked me if I would like to contribute some illustrations. I said yes, so now you should go check out the first installment.

I've been drawing patterns. Here is the first one.

blah blah blah

I'm graduating from college this saturday.

so insert some sentimental dribble about these last four years being incredible and all the people that I met are amazing and I'll never forget anyone and blah blah blah.

one great thing about graduating with a degree in art: first major to receive diplomas/empty folder. I will be the 8th name called.

one not so great thing about graduating with a degree in art: what am I going to do?

I decided to make an infograph for Primer, the 2004 ultra-low budget sci-fi directorial debut of Shane Carruth. This is a time-travel, greed, and manipulation. It is also incredibly hard to follow. Perhaps this snazzy timeline will help your brain process the convoluted storyline.

There are not very many characters: the plot centers around two characters and through their interactions we are introduced to some additional ones. But since this movie is about time travel there are different versions of the two main guys: one gets 2 versions, the other gets 3 (possibly more, but that is never explicitly explained). 

I wanted to make the timeline more visually appealing than the few I have seen in the past so I decided to use a system of symbols for the major nouns that pop up throughout the plot (such as names and time machines). Hopefully that did not make things harder to understand.

Here is the complete infograph. Clicking on the image will bring you to the full size version.

The movie deals with time travel in the sense that, with the device from the film, a person can travel back in time but not forward. One interesting thing that occurs is that the amount of time spent in the time-traveling device equals the amount of time in the past the time-traveler has journeyed: if it was Thursday and you wanted to go back to Monday you would have to spend 3 days just waiting in the device.

Note: for those of you thinking, "What about when Abe shows Aaron a version of himself entering the storage unit? Isn't a new version of the two guys created every time they travel back in time?" I am not counting those short-term multiples as new manifestations of Abe and Aaron because as soon as they enter the device, the multiple ceases to exist. In this infograph the only way a new version of someone can be created is through the use of a failsafe device.

transitions

I hate transitional periods. I haven't experienced one like this before. at the end of every school year I knew that a new year would begin at the end of the summer. but now it is summer again and I know that no new semester is waiting for me at the end of august. the buzzword is uncertain. I have never felt this uncertain before. at the end of the month my lease is up and I have to move home. for how long? I don't know.

ever since I began college, maybe even before, whenever I was at home for an extended period of time I felt like I was in limbo. not doing anything, just waiting. but now the only thing that I am waiting for is for me to make a decision.

I HATE making decisions.

I have a hard enough time deciding what type of toothpaste I should buy. I don't know what I'm going to do. I've been avoiding the decision so far. that hasn't exactly been productive. but right now I don't even know how to start. I'm stuck in a cycle of denial, waiting for someone to tell what comes next.

so what comes next?