STeAlyouRBUCKS

In a college town, there are many places that try to take advantage of inexperienced, dumb-as-a-brick frat boys, daddy-bails-me-out sorority girls, throwing-money-at-it-solves-all-of-our-problems Johnson County kids. But none more so than Starbucks. So you go in expecting to pay $first-born child for a venti white chocolate mocha w/shot of chocolate carmel espresso, that's a given. But here's where they get you. You wanna log on to the internet to check your e-mail, blogs, fantasy baseball, your fantasy relationship with your fantasy girlfriend? Its gonna cost ya. $2.99/2-hour log-in, or $9.99/mo. No thank you.

I imagine that this is to keep some of the riff-raff out, but last time I checked the riff-raff was just discovering that WWE RAW had been moved to Monday nights and that they could upgrade their single-wide to a double-wide. I mean the 22-hour laundromat in aggieville has free internet and it has all of the town's riff-raff who more or less live there (more).
So how is the monster defeated you might ask? Simple really, see what other networks are set-up in the area and log on to one that you don't need a password to (I suggest the one entitled "Motorola"). How do you think I'm posting this right now?
Dear Starbucks,
You may be able to charge me my first-born child for one of your delicious gourmet coffee drinks, but I will not sell one of my kidneys to use your internet. You have been defeated. Jerk-heads.
Love always and forever,
Stephen

Excessive Ping-Pong celebration

To some people, ping-pong is more than just a sport.

Watch this all the way until the end:

Gotees & Mullets

(Had to post something about my excitement for these guys!)

Some of my very best friends are in a band called Abandon Kansas. The lead singer, Jeremy Spring, has been one of my best friends ever since he moved to Kansas in 6th grade. He and I grew up thru high school and eventually put together a band called $12 Skolarship (even won the talent show Senior year, hear a song here). That didn't last past high school for me, but as for Jeremy it was only the beginning of what would become Abandon Kansas.
They are responsible for much of the beginnings of my design work. They let me design all sorts of shirts, posters, etc for their band. It was pro-bono work, but had it not been for them, I wouldn't have had nearly the amount of contacts that I had to be able to have a semi-steady income from doing free-lance work.
I was also able to spend a whole month last summer on tour with these guys. One of the most incredible adventures I had ever been on.
I was talking with Jeremy last night and he told me some of the most exciting news I had heard all week:
Abandon Kansas is signed to a label!!!
They signed with Gotee Records who has produced such artists as: Relient K, TobyMac, DC Talk, John Reuben, Force Family 5, Jennifer Knapp, and many more of the top christian artists. This is very exciting news for the guys. I have been told it is a 3 year contract and that they will be recording their first album under the label in May.

The $455.59 Poster

My poster got accepted to a Nation Student Show in Dallas. VERY EXCITING! But at what cost?

I had to mount the poster on matte board to mail to the show. Sounds simple and cheap right? Here's the break down:

$9.99 - Matte board
$21.25 - 18x24 Poster print out
$21.25 - Second 18x24 poster print out because the colors were messed up on the first one
$50 - Parking ticket because I had to park on campus to cut and mount everything
$80 - Towing fine for my truck (the one that got the $50 ticket earlier)
$81.10 - UPS store's price for a box + guaranteed delivery for Monday (deadline for submission)

$263.59 (Total cost of getting this poster to Dallas)
+ $192 (total cost of submitting work $17 + registration for event $175)
_______
$455.49 = Grand Total (before food/lodge/swag/books/etc.)

Not to be a Mastercard commercial, but I know that after the even is over it will end up being a PRICELESS experience.
But this arm & leg stuff upfront is frustrating.

Betchya Didn't Know (Part 4)

(This is part 4 of a 5 part series of getting to know little known facts about me - some of these you may already know)
I have never had chicken pox.
Fact:I was sheltered as a child.
I often played by myself in my room listening to educational tapes and building impenetrable Lego forts. So sheltered in fact, that when I went to Kindergarten I had never had chocolate milk before, I came home wildly excited exclaiming "Mom, they have brown milk at school!"
We moved quite a bit when I was young and I never had any friends until Kindergarten in Missouri and then we moved to Kansas - so i wasn't ever in direct contact with anyone who had the red polka-dotted virus. When I was about 16 I was given a shot that gave me the symptoms without the itchy bumps, this was so if I caught the virus as an adult I wouldn't get the shingles. Now you know.

Larry entertains!

For St. Patrick's Day, Larry (the German) sings 'MacNamara's Band' and Irish classic:

Check out:
- Wicked glasses
- Debbie on beat! (in the background)
- Tyler sighting (white/blue striped shirt)
- Auto harp (Larry explained "Doesn't mean that it plays by itself")

The Springtime Basketball Tournament ®

The Springtime Basketball Tournament®
Since the name that is normally used for this "mad" time of year is registered, I came up with my own: The Springtime Basketball Tournament® (if you use it without my express written consent, then I get to hunt you down, beat the snot out of you and shot your dog)
Here are my Final 2+2®:
Michigan State, Memphis, Pitt, UNC - Pitt is crowned victorious after a tight battle with Michigan St.

Obama's Final 2+2®
Louisville, Memphis, Pitt, UNC

Emma Story!
Today she was filling out her bracket for our office pool. I kept hearing her say, "Oh, I bet they'll win. Oh, they're probably pretty good." Taking pity on the girl I went over to see how things were going - not good, not good at all. Really Emma #15 Binghamton beating out Duke in the first round? Or Western Kentucky making it to the Elite Eight?
I took some time to explain how the rankings work and that the closer the team is to being #1, the better they are. She understood and proceeded to print off a new bracket. Out of curiosity I asked her why she chose the teams she did, her response was (and I am not making this up), "I choose the teams according to who I think has the most black players on it." Can you blame her? Better factoring than choosing teams based on whether their mascot could beat up the other mascot I suppose.

Procrastination...

Procrastination video by John Kelly

Reporter Slip-ups

Artistic Bucketlist

About 7 years ago I came up with my own bucketlist (long before the movie). I called it "100 Life Goals". This is not unusual since I make lists for everything.
I came across a site called Wordle.net. It asked for a large amount of text to be entered into the box so it can make a cool typographic composition, I used that bucketlist and got this:

(click to enlarge)
This program scrambles the words to make this masterpiece, leaving some of it not making sense.
Example: "Go book hot fishing etc" "helicopter bed bear", and "Buy fire fly help". Sure does make for a fun and interesting read!

Stephen Does Dallas

About a month ago I stayed up some stupid-long hours to put together a portfolio to send to the 5th annual Dallas Student Show. This is a national graphic design show aimed at college seniors. I had planned on attending the show regardless of whether or not any of my work made it in.
I am very excited to announce (drumroll please) that I MADE IT IN THE SHOW!


My winning piece is below, entitled MacBeth:

If you notice, I am completely surrounded by students who have gone to Texas schools. This makes me 1 of just 3 in the state of Kansas that has work being shown in the show! I am very excited about this and super-pumped! Just goes to show that hard work pays off every now and again. Stay tuned around April 1-5, I will be posting more about how the conference went. You can check out more here.

Personal Rider

For those of you who don't thumb through a Lawyer word list or Rock & Roll Dictionary on a regular basis, a "rider" is the term for those unique little clauses that you get to add to your contract for before and after you melt faces at a venue. The most famous being Van Halen's concert rider referring to their desire of M&M's, stating "ABSOLUTELY NO BROWN ONES".
I figured that I should get an early start on my rider so that one day when I'm a famous rock musician with my band "The Garamonsters" or world-renowned graphic designer about ready to give the presentation of your lifetime, it will already be ready:

STEPHEN'S RIDER
A. At the Venue
1. 60" Flat-screen tv with access to ESPN, Comedy Central, Discovery Channel, Cartoon Network, TBS, and NBC
2. At least one Cadillac Couch the more the merrier and all in silver and navy blue
3. Latest edition of Print, How, ESPN, and Time magazines
4. Dim lighting, but not too dark. Just enough to set the ambiance...(oh, wait, yep, no, almost had it, little dimmer, yeah, no, oh, yep that's it...ahhhh)
5. A fluffy blanket and 3 fresh pillows - firm, but not too hard and not too soft (powernap awaits!)
6. A small space heater set to warm
6a. This applies only to the months of October-March, otherwise disregard
7. Book for sketching/note takeing - must have a navy blue cover and made of leather and a pencil (not mechanical) but a real pencil made from real wood

B. Refreshments
1. Fondue Fountain - with strawberries on little sticks, bananas on little sticks, and a shallow bowl of coconut shavings that I can roll the chocolate covered fruit in
2. Bottles of Jones Soda - Berry Lemonade & Fufu Berry - don't judge me (bottles NOT cans)
3. A HOT pizza from Grimaldi's Pizza in Brooklyn
4. Chilled carton of chocolate milk - 2% only
5. Water, lots of water - chilled but with no ice

C. Additional
1. Quick and hidden access from the party bus to the venue so as to not be attacked by swarms of fans
2. Must use one of the following for my intro music:
*"Eye of the Tiger" - Survivor
*"Rock & Roll: Part II" - Gary Glitter
*"Thunderstruck" - AC/DC
*"Welcome to the Jungle" - Guns 'N Roses
2a. Never must the same song be used at a similar event in the same time zone in a given fiscal year
3. Pyrotechnics must be used upon my exit of the stage whenever possible

I don't think this list is too much to ask for.
This is in response to Armin Vit's rider

Half of Life's Guarantees

I believe it was the man on the $100 bill that coined the phrase, "Nothing is guaranteed in life but death and taxes". Today, I took care of one of those. (the taxes part of course...although the other might happen by the end of this semester)

This is the real deal here. In the words of the punk band The Ataris: "Being grown up isn't half as fun as growing up" - and don't that ring true

Right Here, Right Now: The Facts

This video is incredible. If you are not convinced that we're living in a time of an informational revolution, look no further. Not only is it done so well artistically, but also the information that it contains is phenomenal:

Thanks for the hook-ups Aubrey!

Irish Music - LIVE

While in Kansas City this past weekend, I got the luxury of hearing the band "Flannigan's Right Hook" perform at the Raglan Road in the Power & Lights district. What an awesome show! They did some original music as well as quite a few awesome covers.
Here is some video I took to highlight their music:

Hell Week Stats

This past week was overwhelming to say the least - rightfully dubbed "Hell Week". Literally half of what is assigned this semester in my Senior Studio class was due this past Thursday.
Chart of the hours I was in studio for each day:

Hours of real, money-paying work missed: 22
Power Naps: 7
Cans of Mtn. Dew: 9
Cups of Coffee: 4
Paper cuts: 1

When it was all said and done I was in studio over 70 hours in 6 days. I will have pictures of what was due on those days in a later post.

Abandon Kansas stops in Manhattan

Some of my best buds, the Abandon Kansas boys, made a stop last night and played a show at PJ's in Manhattan last night.

Fun pics:
(that's me making a cameo and shakin my groove thang)

Really fun show!

New song, "Make Believe":

Pumped (and Circumstance)!

Well, its officially official: